


Fool's Gold

by bastardoftherealm



Category: Unus Annus - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: (hopefully!! my work schedule is SHIT so we'll see), FBI Agent!Mark, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Thief!Ethan, ethan steals shit and bops to abba what else do you want, rivals to god knows what, slow burn (to the max baybe!), there's gonna be a lot of DENIAL, updates every sunday and wednesday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:06:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 43,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24350281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastardoftherealm/pseuds/bastardoftherealm
Summary: Friends as kids, strangers with age, enemies in profession.Special Agent Mark Fischbach had everything. And then he fucked up really, really bad. Now he’s stuck with a run of the mill art theft case and a shiny-faced rookie partner.Ethan Nestor was always flexible. So when he was asked if his skills as a gymnast could be moved from the bars and beams to a more criminal use, the path was simple.The chase is on as the two circle one another through heist after heist. They may be able to survive the pursuit, but can they face the shared past they left behind so long ago?
Relationships: Mark Fischbach & Ethan Nestor, Mark Fischbach/Ethan Nestor
Comments: 135
Kudos: 727





	1. File #101: The Rookie and the Reprimanded

“I can’t believe you, Fischbach.” Director Amherst threw her papers down onto the table. “First, you go behind my back, break the chain of command, act like nothing happened, and then have the _audacity_ to drop the report like you weren’t responsible for all of it.”

Special Agent Mark Fischbach sat across from her, his lips pushed together into a thin line, staring out the window behind her. His arms were crossed tight against his chest, and he was sunk low into the plush of the chair that he couldn't seem to get comfortable in. He didn’t realize until later that it might’ve been made that way on purpose. 

People didn’t come here to be comfortable. People came here when they fucked up _bad_.

“I’m  _ very _ disappointed in your behavior recently. I mean, I understood when you flew off the handle at Greyse, especially with what you’d seen, but when you started getting more, well…” Amherst pressed a fingertip to her temple before folding herself into her chair. “You know as well as I do that doing something of this caliber isn’t just going to get you a slap on the wrist.” 

“Just rip the fucking bandaid off already, will you?” Mark rolled his eyes, “where am I going?” Amherst pressed her lips together in that motherly way he hated, and he spat out a quiet apology. 

“You’re lucky this was sent to me and not Venshire, I don’t want you to forget that this is not only an uncalled for move on my part, but that it is your very, _very_ thin shot of getting yourself out of the doghouse.” Amherst cleaned up the files she’d tossed on her desk and put them into an open drawer beside her. She pulled from inside it two thin folders, and set them on the table. “Do you understand what I’m saying Fischbach?” 

“Yes.” He mumbled. Mark sat up a little straighter as she began to flip through the files. “So what is it? Spree killer? Media frenzy you’re gonna make me sort out? Low level drug operation?” 

“None of that.” She handed him the file and he leaned forward to take it. “I’m sending you on an art theft case.” 

“ _What?!_ ” Mark nearly leapt out of his chair at her, but instead dug his fingertips into the leather and stayed put. “You’ve got to be _kidding_ me.” 

“Not only that. After what you did, Agent Peterson has asked for reassignment. So that means, you’re getting a new partner-” She pushed the file towards him, and he opened it gingerly. “Her name is Amy Nelson, and she’s fresh out of Quantico-”

“So not only are you asking me to work white collar  _ art theft _ ,” Mark snapped the file shut without even reading it properly. “But you’re making me babysit a damn  _ rookie _ ?” 

“I could have you reprimanded for that tone,” Amherst looked pleased with herself.

“Bite me.” Mark growled. “I wish you would. It’d be better than this bullshit.” 

Her expression took on a darker tone. “And I’m not  _ asking _ you to work the case, Fischbach, I’m  _ telling _ you to. This is the last bridge you haven’t burned, and you’re on thin ice as it is, if you mess this shit up, I can’t help you again.” Amherst’s face lightened a little and she smiled. “As for your partner, she’s waiting for you in Briefing Room C, Wiley will give you the rundown on this particular set of crimes.” She gesticulated with a hand. "They're a doozy, apparently." 

Mark tossed the file back onto the table and stood, huffing his way out of the room. He shoved his hands into his pockets as he stormed down the hallway, letting people jump out of his way as he barreled down the corridor. 

He knew that Amherst was right, but he wasn’t _that_ bad a fucking burnout yet. Sure, he’d made some mistakes, but not enough to warrant a damn section  _ and _ partner change. And a fucking  _ rookie _ at that.

Mark pushed open the door to the briefing room, which was one of the smaller conference rooms walled in by glass on all sides. It made him feel like he was stuck in a fishbowl, watched by everything and everyone around him. It made his skin crawl.

He took the seat farthest from the only other person in the room. She was shortish, maybe medium height, it was hard to tell with her sitting. Her hair was a nut brown, and pulled back into a ponytail high on her head. As she turned her head at him entering, he caught her eyes. They were dark, brown or black maybe, but friendly. She gave him a smile that looked genuine, but he ignored it, turning his head towards the board at the front and slumping down into the chair similar to how he’d been sitting before. 

“Uh, hi…?” She moved her head in a motion not dissimilar from that of a bird, turning to try and catch his eye. “I’m Amy...um, I mean, I’m Agent Nelson, I’m new…?”

“I know who you are,” he replied plainly. 

“Oh, uh, okay.” She paused for a moment before speaking again. “And you must be Agent Fischbach-”

“Yup.” 

“I’m a little new to the bureau, and uh-”

“I know. Just sit tight, shut up, and do as you’re told.” He gave her the best death stare he could, and she went silent. “I just want to get this done with, so that I can get back to the work I’m supposed to be doing.” 

“Uh,” she stopped herself. “Right.” 

The door behind them swung open, and a kid that didn’t look much older than maybe 19 or 20 buzzed in. He had bright platinum blond hair, and Mark recognized him from that alone. He knew the kid pretty well from working with him over the years. The kid, known better around here as “Wiley”, was a crack shot with computers, and had risen up the ranks throughout the years for his brains and ingenuity within the Bureau. 

He turned towards them as he moved to stand at the front of the table, and a wide smile flickered across his face as he noticed Mark. “Fischbach! Wow, hi, it’s been a while, huh?” 

Mark nodded slightly and waved his hand for Wiley to get on with the briefing. 

Wiley turned to see Agent Nelson and smiled even brighter at her. “And you must be the rookie, Nelson, right?”

“Yeah,” she brightened. 

“Well, welcome to the bureau, don’t be afraid to ask if you need anything.” Wiley put up a hand and gestured with a pointing thumb behind it at Mark. “And don’t be too scared of him either, he’s a big softy at heart.”

“Wiley,” Mark interrupted. “The case?”

“Of course.” He opened a laptop on the podium that sat at the end of the table, and a projection appeared on the screen at the end. “Okay, so this one’s kinda interesting, because they have no idea who whatsoever could be behind it.”

“Great,” Mark grumbled.

“Because,” Wiley flicked through a boring photo set after a boring photoset. “The number of people involved changes every time.” Mark let his gaze fall out the window and into the main bullpen as people passed by. “The only thing connecting them together is a smiley face tag left behind. Now, we’ve done a bunch of cross-referencing, and nobody has ever seen it before, it’s never shown up on any websites or other media that we know of.” 

Mark glanced over to Amy to see that she was taking notes, and rolled his eyes, looking back up to the screen as Wiley flipped to a different slide. He looked over a photo where glass cases had been either masterfully taken or smashed entirely, and narrowed his eyes at the two photos before tuning back in to what Wiley was saying. 

“We’ve currently stuck with the working theory that this is the work of a digital mastermind.”

“Doesn’t that mean cyber crime?” Mark cut in. “Does that mean we have to  _ work _ with cyber crime?” He let himself deflate a little. “They’re all a bunch of goons...No offense Wiley.”

“Uh, a little taken?” Wiley clicked through a few more photosets. “And no, as of now, since we can’t pin it down as digital completely, it’s not a cyber crime case. We believe, as of now, that whoever is orchestrating this hires out different crews for different jobs, so as to change their mode of operations every time. But, once again we’ve been combing websites and postings where jobs like that are often placed, and still come up empty.” 

“So you need the good old grunt force going out to do the leg work for you?” 

“Yes.” Wiley said with a half smile. “If you would.”

“Oh, anything for you Wiley the great and powerful,” Mark teased sarcastically.

“Okay?” The man sighed. “Anyways. There’s a crime scene that’s still hot downtown.” He nodded to Mark. “I know that’s sort of your thing.” Wiley looked to Nelson. “And I’m sure you can learn a lot from an active scene, especially from a veteran like Fischbach here.” 

Mark just rolled his eyes and voiced his hatred of the situation with a grumble. 

The two headed to where Wiley pinged the scene for them. Mark took his car, he didn’t trust the rookie to drive, and he played whatever station was on, just to keep from having to make conversation. It was clear that she wanted to, but he wasn’t about to let someone new infiltrate the nice little existence he’d made for himself. 

Even his previous partner had been a gamble, especially with the man asking for transfer without notice. Sure, Mark might’ve deserved that too, but he just wished that his partner would’ve had the courtesy of saying goodbye before he ejected himself from Mark’s life so abruptly.

The gallery that had been robbed was smaller, but apparently was lucky enough to have a larger collection loaned to it by a local artist who’d made it big. They pulled up to the front door, parking against the curb. The two of them stepped out, and Mark rolled his eyes again as he saw Amy pull out a notebook from the pocket of her blazer. He began scoping out the entrances to the building as the two of them approached the entrance. 

It would be harder to access by a thief, due to the fact that it was on a somewhat busy street, edged up next to a popular coffee shop and a hole in the wall bookstore that an ex of Mark’s had brought him to once. Amy pushed the door open, greeting the gallery owner and doing most of the talking as Mark looked around the area with his hands in his pockets.  The owner took them through the art, and Amy asked them question after question, clearly eager about being on the scene for the first time.

It was a typical gallery. Live in New York for long enough, and you see your fair share of art galleries, on purpose or not. He noted the overabundance of apparent evidence tags, too many to actually make sense for the place.  There were footsteps marked, and spaces scratched on the wall, places where other paintings had fallen, and other evidence tags that meant there was DNA or photo evidence back at the headquarters. And yet, none of it made sense.

They headed in to where the painting in question had been stolen. The wall where it had hung was bare, but he’d seen it in the file Wiley had passed him. 

It was of a young woman in blue sticking her tongue out at the viewer while flipping them off with one hand and holding a pile of burning money in the other. Critique of capitalism, he assumed, what wasn’t these days. But apparently it’d cost upwards of 200,000 dollars. Why they’d left it with such lax security, he didn’t know.

Amy and the gallery owner eventually stopped talking as Amy began to do that weird ‘checklist’ they taught you at Quantico that Mark had realized was stupid the second he’d gotten in the field. She seemed so in her element to the point that Mark almost wanted to laugh. 

He didn’t even see the point of coming downtown now that he was standing here, they could've gotten all the information they needed out of the files back at the office. The photos were good enough there. You only needed to be on scene for two types of crimes, murders and drug trade. If you were good enough at your job, all the rest could easily be done from the comfort of a desk. 

Mark scanned the room without much thought, until his eyes landed on a vent. He wouldn’t have noticed it normally, but it was the color that caught his attention. There was some sort of residue on it, standing out yellowish against the white paint. It appeared to be stuck to the inside, like someone had given the interior a bad paint job. 

And he would’ve disregarded it too, if he didn't then look at the screws. They had clearly been painted white after they’d been installed, but they looked like they’d been taken off and replaced recently.

He pointed up to it and spoke. “Do you often take off the vent covers?” 

The gallery owner shook their head, letting out a squeak. “Never!”

Mark pushed his hands back into his pockets and cocked his head to the side. “Do you have a ladder?”

The gallery owner nodded vehemently and went off in search of it. 

He turned back to the wall where the painting had been kept, it was small, small enough to… Mark swiveled to face Amy again. “Multitool?” It was less of a question and more of a request.

“How do you know that I…” She raised her eyebrows and dug in her pocket, revealing a small cylindrical object. He flipped through them as the gallery owner returned, handing him the ladder. Mark thanked them and placed it below the vent. 

“Did Wiley say two or three people?” 

“Um.” He turned back to see Amy pull open her notebook and flip through it. He almost smiled at her, barely on her first job and already eager to please. “Wiley said that they believe that they found a way to shut down the gallery security, and then they snuck in and took it out the front door.”

He stepped up onto it and opened up the little flathead screwdriver in the multitool. “I think that even if they did do it late at night, someone at the cafe would’ve seen them. And there’s citywide security cameras outside, they would’ve had to have hacked into both the security systems here, and the city.” Mark undid the screws, handing them down to Amy as he took them out. She took the multitool back as he pulled the vent cover off, and Mark peered inside. 

Inside there were traces of movement in the dust, and a space where the metal had been pulled away against where a hook on a climbing rope might’ve been placed. 

“And I also think Wiley was wrong,” Mark spoke. This might be an easier job than he expected. “This wasn’t a group of people. It was just one.” 

“What?” Amy’s voice came from below. Mark pulled his head out, and looked down at her.

“Whoever did this, they made it look like this was done by more than one person, so they’re either much dumber than we thought or much, much smarter than we could ever anticipate.” 

“Oh hell,” Amy muttered.

He turned the vent over to see what had caught his eye, nearly losing his balance as he found a familiar drawing on the back. Something he hadn’t seen in a long time. Something he realized he hadn’t noticed before during the briefing, because he’d been distracted.

A yellow smiley face with black x-ed out eyes. 

A drawing by an old friend.


	2. File #102: Take A Chance On Me

Ethan Nestor stood atop the curved dome of the Westchester Metropolitan. The night was cool, which was surprising for what had been a particularly warm April. Ethan checked his harness one last time before pushing his headphones in, syncing his phone with the modem router he’d already set up inside.

Ethan opened up his music app, scrolling through to find the particular selection of ABBA he was looking for. Take A Chance On Me looked back at him in technicolor brilliance. 

_ 4:03, that’s all he had _ . _Four minutes and three seconds_.

The security system would be down for five minutes before resetting, and Ethan liked a challenge regardless. He queued up the song to start, shaking his hands out as he waited the few seconds he needed for the alarm system to reset. Three, two, and…

Ethan popped open the window pane, taking a breath in as the opening lines of the song jumped out. He leapt forward, closing his eyes for the second he hit free fall, trying to keep himself from whooping with excitement. Ethan wrapped his hand around the rope, catching himself the second before he hit the ground. 

Moving as quickly as he could, he lifted himself up with the single hand that was wrapped with rope. Ethan dropped a little extra line with his free hand and wrapped it around his right leg, letting go of the bit wrapped around his arm.

He was hanging in a main gallery room, which was not the one he wanted to be in right now, but close was enough to the showroom that he could drop in through the ceiling, rather than have to climb in through the air vents. After his last job, there was no way he was doing that again. 

This security system for the building was one of the more expensive he’d seen, but that didn’t mean that it was hard to get into. He’d come in about a week earlier, wearing that cute college boy outfit he always wore to places like these. 

Grey jeans, a black turtleneck, some silver rimmed glasses, and a pair of shoes that shone like pennies, and he could slip in anywhere. 

Including into the gallery owner. But someone like him didn't always like to kiss and tell, you know. 

Once he'd gotten himself to the point of appearing to everyone to be the least suspicious character around, he'd simply taken his trusty little box of technological wonders, and routed it into the main modem. Most of the work was already done, all he had to do now was simply, _execute_. 

He still didn't know exactly  _ how _ the box worked, it’d been a gift when he’d gotten into this sort of business alone, but he knew that it  _ did _ work, and it hadn’t failed him yet. Ethan pulled up his phone where it was secured to his wrist, tapped in a few commands, and a light on the door on the other side of the room turned from red to green.

The floor was pressure sensitive in this room, apparently this was because all of the items in the room were expensive enough to cost the gallery a whole lot if they were stolen. What a shame. 

Everything in this room was tacky, mostly oil paintings of angry looking old men and women who seemed like they’d scold him about his weight. There _were_ a few statues, but they weren’t the one he wanted. 

Ethan shifted his weight as he focused on the door, swinging himself back and forth until he was close enough to grab the wall. From one of the pockets on his vest, Ethan drew out a suction cup the size of his open palm. On one side was the black silicone suction cup, and the other a silver metal handle. He swung towards the door, linking his free foot underneath the handle before taking his time to stick the suction cup against the wall and lock it into place. 

Ethan balanced on the door handle with one foot, and held onto the suction cup handle with the other. He then loosened the rope from around his foot, and tied it to the handle of the cup. With the tip of his toe, Ethan pushed the door handle down, swinging it gently open before grasping onto the top of the door, and sliding down onto the floor soundlessly. 

This room was small, with a single pedestal in the middle holding up the prize of the evening. It was a small golden statue of a horse, encased in glass. Ethan pressed a few buttons on his phone and watched as thin lasers flickered into existence before disappearing again. He’d assumed they’d have something like that, but he was surprised that they weren’t harder to take down.

Ethan strode across the area, approaching the pedestal with that thundering panic in his chest. He’d checked over the weight hundreds of times, it was going to work. He flipped his wrist over and finalized the last command, watching as the light on the glass case dimmed. 

Ethan reached forward to pull it off before noting that the sensor that held the glass in place hadn’t flickered green. 

No matter, it was an easy fix. 

With some leverage, he popped off the outside cap of the sensor, pulling out a tiny screwdriver from his inner pocket. Ethan prodded at the sensor’s inner shutdown mechanism, which normally needed a special key on the outside to activate. If he held the screwdriver there, then…The inner light flicked green, and Ethan grinned. 

He moved the glass case off the statue, maneuvering his pack to the side before unzipping it quietly. 

He used one hand to jam the screwdriver farther into the sensor, he removed the horse statue, and sliding it into his bag. With the other, he pulled out a small rock with his smiley face painted on top. Ethan smiled back at the image before he focused in at the task at hand.

He replaced the glass case on top and removed the screwdriver, wiping off the outer casing of the sensor before replacing it. Ethan zipped his pack back up and crossed the room with ease. 

He reached up and grabbed for the handle of the suction cup, lifting himself with one hand. Ethan undid the rope and tied one part to his back while letting the other section dangle so he could wrap it around his leg again. He placed the suction cup back in his bag before closing the door with his foot. Ethan shimmied his way up the rope and clambered out the hole in the roof, closing the top just as his song came to a fading close. 

Ethan let out the breath trapped in his chest, running across the glass dome as he saw a guard walk into the room with a flashlight.  _ Damn he’d timed it perfectly _ . He leapt to the side and pressed himself against the concrete barrier as the guard flashed the light upwards, giggling under his breath the whole time. 

Ethan grabbed for his duffle bag that sat away from view. He swung it over his shoulder, securing it with the chest strap and grabbing the grappling hook from where it was affixed to his belt. Ethan leapt up onto the higher portion of the building, scrambling up the side with his familiar grace.

He stood poised with his face towards the city, getting one good look before aiming the gun at a nearby tree and firing the grappling hook into the branches. He tugged on it twice to make sure that it had deployed properly, and drew in one last breath before letting out a whoop and swinging down over the side.

He bunched himself together as he swung across the parking lot and into the darkness, wind whipping past his face. Ethan spread himself out as he grabbed for a one of the branches, landing on it with a clatter.

He reached up and pulled the hook free, pressing the device back into his belt before sliding down the tree. Ethan pulled out his headphones and brought his phone up to his face just as he watched his time tick out.

_ Out in just under five minutes, this would call for a celebration _ . 

With a grin on his face and the stolen statue in his pack, Ethan headed down the hill towards where he’d parked his motorcycle in the brush. He’d be able to do this. He could make something of himself for them. 

He had to. 


	3. File #103: Old Friend

“Uh huh, yep, yes. Yeah, yeah I love you too. Bye.” Mark pulled his phone from his ear to end the call. 

“Girlfriend?” Amy asked as she climbed into the passenger side of the car. When he didn’t answer directly she spoke again. “Boyfriend?” 

“Mom.” Mark responded. 

“Aww that’s sweet, you call your mom often?” 

She handed him a cup of coffee and he thanked her quietly. Mark sighed, and blew over the top of his coffee. “It was for the case.” 

“Your mom? Helping you with a case?” Amy brought the cup to her lips. “I was wondering why they had you demoted, but now I see why,” she teased lightly.

“ _Funny_ ,” Mark said through gritted teeth.

They were stopped for the moment at the little dinky coffee cart that was wheeled out a few blocks down from the FBI office. He decided that, though he didn’t choose to have her as a partner, she didn’t choose him either, and it would be rude to not at least show her some of the ropes. 

Every agent who passed through the headquarters here at some point would have to know about Mickey’s coffee cart. Never skimped on beans, never skimped on milk, the man made a good cup of coffee. 

They were heading towards the Westchester Metropolitain. Apparently the “Smiley Bandit” as Amy had taken to calling him, (Mark hated the name), had hit the building last night, and made off with one of their numerous priceless artifacts. 

Mark merged into traffic and drove them north towards Westchester County. Amy fidgeted with the cup in her hands, and Mark leaned forward to turn the radio up.

“Can I ask you something? 

“Shoot.” 

“Why do you have such a stick up your ass?” 

Mark took a second to register what she’d asked before sputtering out a loud, “ _excuse me_?” 

“We’re stuck in a car together for the next hour or so, and you’re going to be stuck with me for god knows how much longer, and I’d rather be able to make conversation in times like now than just stare at the horizon.” 

Mark coughed on his own tongue as he tried to gather himself. “I don’t think I owe you anything. ” He dropped his voice as he spoke again. “And I wouldn’t even know where to start with a comment like ‘stick up my ass’.” 

“Well, like, why are you so pissed off all the time?” 

“There are a lot of reasons for that,” Mark replied. “Particularly somebody I _barely know_ trying to get into my head.”

“Maybe if you told me, then you’d be less pissed off.” 

"Doubtful." Mark grumbled under his breath as he rolled his eyes. “Didn’t they let you read my file, anyway?” 

“Your file?” 

“Yeah, the files the bureau keeps on all of its agents. They should’ve given you one before you started working with me. It details everything you’re cleared to know about me. And if everything from the last operation has been published to the public, then you should be able to read all of it there.” 

“And that’s different from you just telling me now, how?” 

“Because then _I_ don’t have to relive all it of it, okay?” Mark’s chest was hammering out of control. _He couldn’t spiral, not now_. He tried his best to keep his breathing controlled. “Just drop it rookie, okay?” 

“O...Okay.” 

The rest of the ride was quiet, save for the radio, or Amy relaying messages back from headquarters. They arrived at the Westchester Metropolitain to find a familiar sight to the first gallery. Frazzled curator, impossible break in, _yadda-yadda_. Only this time, it was buzzing with CSI techs. 

Mark breezed through the gallery, looking the walls up and down for any sign of the smiley face. He’d been barely briefed on what happened here, he preferred going in with as little information possible, it helped him try to see everything, not just look for what had already been found. Mark followed the general stream of blue-jacketed workers, until he made it into a large circular room with a giant glass ceiling. 

He waited for Amy and the curator, grabbing a bit of their conversation as they passed.

“-how it even happened! The floor in this room is pressurized, the system is state of the art, no one was even supposed to _know_ that _Horse With No Rider_ was on display!” 

Mark turned his head up towards the ceiling, narrowing his eyes at a panel far above that looked slightly loose. He hummed softly in thought, and watched as the curator headed towards a door at the end of the room. They swiped a key card against it, and it flickered green. 

Amy and the curator walked in, but Mark stopped for a second to inspect the doorframe. There were no clear markings where anything had been screwed into the wall, no residue he could see so far that would indicate an adhesive. 

“You were always too smart for your own good,” he murmured softly. Mark crossed through the foyer space and stopped in his tracks as he watched Amy and a few CSI techs snap photos of the new object that occupied the space where the statue had once been.

The sinking dread flooded him at once, and it shocked him like the snap of a rubber band against the back of his neck.

The phone call to his mom earlier hadn’t been one of coincidence, but one to confirm a suspicion that had crept up his skin. He’d asked her to go through his old notebooks, the ones she kept in the attic. 

The drawing wouldn’t be hard to find, especially if she looked through some of his middle school science notebooks. He’d drawn them the most in there. 

The new object sat, painted bright yellow, smiling out at him with X-ed out eyes. Yeah there was no mistaking it. 

Mark pulled his phone from his pocket, swiping through the shakey low-light photos his mom had sent him. The same strokes, the same look, there was no mistaking it. 

_How had a criminal gotten a hold of the design his friend had once drawn?_

Mark still had his number, he knew that it was saved somewhere deep in his phone. Even when he’d transferred phones, he’d never gotten rid of it. Maybe there was a small part of him that hoped that one day the two of them might even be friends again. It was a small hope, one that he still clung to, even now. 

He opened the message box and typed out something brief before deleting it and trying again. This one, he was happy with. He lifted his head to find Amy staring at him quizzically. Her expression was a clear, _what the fuck are you doing?_

Mark shrugged in return and focused back in on the blubbering of the curator. They rambled off some figures about how expensive it was, and how much of a loss this was for the museum. Mark was surprised at how easy it was to zone back out the more they talked. 

He hoped that Amy would take better notes than he would. And from the amount of scribbling she was doing in her notebook, he had little to worry about. 

Mark studied the floor, searching for any signs of footprints or the like. He knew that there wouldn’t be any even before he turned his nose to the floor, but one could always hope for a mess up. There were no fingerprints on the glass, no smudges on the pedestal, no-

He narrowed his eyes at the sensor on the outside. It was small, barely noticeable, but it was slightly crooked.

Mark wrapped his hand in his jacket, and reached to pull it off. He shouted for a CSI tech, who scurried over with an evidence bag. Mark dropped it in, letting the tech ceal it shut and hurry away.

He leaned down, pulling out his phone to use the flashlight to peer inside. Mark remembered this sort of sensor from his days back at the academy, the blurry memory still coming back to him now. This sort of model was supposed to be expensive, difficult, and thought to be a marvel of technology. Though there were a few indentations and movements of wires and screws, whoever had done this, they had to know the inner workings of this certain sensor to understand how it worked.

There was no way his old friend would have anything to do with this, right? Some of it made sense, the gymnastics, the high probability that the rappeling had been used to allow him inside-

And then some of it didn’t. How would he have learned all of this? How would he have known to disable all of the security measures? 

It couldn’t have been him alone, right? 

“I think that’ll be all we need.” Amy nudged Mark with her elbow and he returned to focus, replacing the sensor cap and popping back upright.

“Yes, I think so. CSI will go over everything with you.” He nodded briefly. The curator wiped their eyes and gave him a slight smile. 

Mark turned back to the rock painted with the smiley face, narrowing his eyes at it slightly. He pivoted back to the curator, “do you mind if I take that with me?” 

Mark jabbed a french fry into a puddle of ketchup that had pooled on his plate, his phone sitting dark on the table next to him.

Amy sat across from him with her arms crossed against her chest. A single eyebrow was raised, her expression set firmly. 

The smiley face statue lay in a plastic evidence bag between them.

“What?” He finally budged.

“I thought you asking me to lunch was going to be like, a partner bonding exercise, not just sitting here watching you eat french fries.” 

“It is a bonding exercise,” he swallowed down a lump of lukewarm burger. “It’s called ‘rookie pays for lunch’.” 

Amy rolled her eyes before leaning forward to grab her milkshake from in front of her, sipping on it as she stared him down. She moved a free finger towards the statue in the middle of the table. “Why did you ask for that?”

“Reasons that are none of your business.” 

“Is it the same reason you were texting someone in the middle of the interrogation?” 

Mark laughed slightly. “ _That_ wasn’t an interrogation, if we were actually interrogating that curator, they would’ve been crying a lot earlier than they did in the process.” 

Amy furrowed her eyebrows. “Have you actually made someone cry during an interrogation?” 

“That’s classified.” Mark’s eyes flipped down to his phone as a notification came through, though it wasn’t the one he was looking for.

“Seems like everything is,” she sighed. 

Mark scoffed, “you’re so eager to learn about me, why not tell me something about you for once?” 

“Is that really all it’s going to take?”

He paused for a second, considering it. Mark narrowed his eyes, lifting a finger into the air, and waving it downward once. “ _Maybe_.” 

Amy let out a puff of air, her head cocking side ways. “I’ll take a maybe.” She set her milkshake down in front of her. “Would you believe me if I told you that being an FBI agent wasn’t always my number one?” 

“Really,” Mark deadpanned. “I never would’ve guessed.”

She tossed a fry at him, “ _please_ shut up.” 

“Hey,” he raised a hand to deflect it. “Fair is fair when it comes to poking fun.” Mark softened a little. “If not an agent, then what?”

“I wanted to be a veterinarian.” She replied.

“I feel a but coming-”

“ _But_ , I couldn’t handle the surgery portion. Something about cutting into an animal.” Amy let a shiver run through her body. “Just squicks me out.” 

“And all of the serial killer videos they probably made you go through, and practical training, and graphic first aid, and the fact that you’ll have to shoot a _gun_ at someone _doesn’t_?” 

She shrugged. “Animals are different. They can’t understand why it’s happening.”

Mark narrowed his eyes slightly. “You are really fucking weird rookie.”

“I try,” Amy smiled back. 

In that moment, Mark’s phone flashed with the notification he was looking for. One he was dreading and painstakingly nervous for. 

_Ethan N: Hey dude! It really has been a fucking long time._

_Ethan N: We should totally meet up, I’d love to chat. :)_


	4. File #104: Stand-Off

Ethan sat on the patio of the quaint little coffee shop close by to his apartment, sipping a  _ caffe corretto _ from a tiny ceramic cup, waiting patiently for his company to arrive. He checked his phone every so often, flicking through the monotony of the different applications, and enjoying the midday breeze that passed through the area every so often.

With everything happening around him, the last thing he’d expected right about now was a message from Mark goddamn Fischbach. He himself had moved to the city only a few years ago, but had known that Mark had moved to New York almost as soon as he’d gotten out of college. 

Neither of them had ever contacted the other for a catch up like this. They hadn’t been that close since they were kids, and when Mark got to high school they barely said more than a few words to each other, but their parents had been friends for as long as Ethan had been alive. 

Whatever the occasion was, Ethan  _ would  _ be glad to see the man again.

Even if he  _ was _ half an hour late.

Eventually a car stopped itself on the street and Ethan had to do a double take. He wasn’t quite sure what he expected of Mark Fischbach after nearly 9 years, but it definitely wasn’t who he saw now.

Mark wore a suit that looked nice, but to Ethan’s eye, he knew it was cheap. His pants were a size too tight, hanging up around his ankles and riding tight against his hips, white dress shirt slightly wrinkled, and his blazer rumpled along the collar. The only thing that looked well fixed was his tie, maroon red with white stripes, but even that hung unpinned and flapping against his chest. 

The thing that Ethan noticed quickly as Mark drew closer was how his face itself had changed. Mark had always been cute as a kid, handsome even, if he managed to dress himself right, with baby fat and bare cheeks that didn’t quite grow facial hair yet. 

This man, despite the appearance of his clothing, had vaulted from cute, over handsome, and straight into the territory of  _ hot _ . 

He’d grown his hair out just enough so that it curled itself against his forehead, and his facial hair had grown in full. Mark had evened out, clearly slightly taller than Ethan himself, but well muscled. 

Ethan set down his coffee as Mark approached him, eyebrows furrowed slightly. “Ethan...Nestor?” 

“In the flesh,” Ethan stood, shaking off the surprise and giving Mark his best movie-star grin. 

The two of them looked at one another awkwardly. Their closeness in the past, muddled with their growing apart in the middle and with the time since they’d last seen each other, along with the blurred lines of what their current relationship to one another could even be considered, had Ethan debating whether to extend a hand or a hug. He moved before Mark could choose, giving his right hand in greeting.

“It’s been a while.” Mark did his best attempt at a smile as he shook Ethan’s hand. Ethan could tell the expression was fake just by hearing Mark’s words pass through it. 

“It has.” Ethan sat back down in his chair, crossing one leg over the other as he picked up his coffee again. “If you want anything, you should head inside and order, I would’ve waited, but-”

The fact that he’d been nearly twenty minutes late didn’t seem to phase Mark as he took a seat across from Ethan. He was beginning to be glad for the slight nip of alcohol in his coffee. From Mark’s tone of voice, he might need it. 

“So, um, what have you been up to…?” Ethan cleared his throat as Mark pulled a folder from his coat. “It’s been a while since I saw you last…” 

“It has,” Mark nodded. He seemed distracted, his head on a near constant swivel as he looked around the street. 

“Something on your mind?” Ethan tried his best to sound concerned.

“Nah, nah, sorry, just haven’t gotten much sleep.” Mark closed his eyes and shook his head. “Sorry, I asked you here, and I’m-”

Ethan waved down a waiter and ordered Mark an espresso. Before Mark could say anything Ethan reiterated his snake bite smile. “It’s on me.” He tipped his head to the side slightly. “You seem like you could use a pick-me-up.” 

This time the left corner of Mark’s mouth turned up just slightly, his eye crinkling up into crow’s feet. There was a glimmer of the kid who he used to sit at the kitchen table and do his homework with, the kid who would grin at him on the bus after sticking his tongue out and crossing his eyes at a girl he liked. An old friend still had a home there in the body of a man Ethan barely recognized. 

“Yeah, um, thanks,” Mark let out a breath. He seemed to relax some. “You look different,” he said suddenly. 

“You do too,” Ethan laughed without thinking. 

“Good different?” Mark lifted an eyebrow. 

“Great different.” His face warmed slightly.

He really had to do a better job of keeping his mouth shut these days. 

Ethan cleared his throat. “You don’t look like a kid anymore, you look-” He meant to gesture to Mark’s face, or maybe his shoulders, or maybe- his hand ended up pointing out all of Mark. Ethan sputtered out, “you have like, facial hair now.” 

“I do,” Mark nodded with a slight smile. 

“You could never grow it, I remember you being mad about that.”

“Oh yeah,” the man murmured thoughtfully. “I’d forgotten about that, the whole middle school thing when my brother could grow it but I couldn’t.” The waiter returned with the coffee, and Mark sipped it, pulling away with his eyebrows tweaking up. “Wow, that is, that’s a damn good coffee.” 

“Their espresso is really good here, apparently Italian beans and some old machine that they swear to.” Ethan shrugged. “I’ve always liked it best.”

“So how have you been?” Mark’s words were muffled by the cup returning to his lips. 

“Uh, good, pretty good.” Ethan began to lay out the lie he’d been using since he’d been dropped alone in New York. He was an actor. Between jobs, but still finding himself with enough money to make himself a hole in the wall. Ethan told Mark about some of the commercials he’d filmed for, some of the weird purely New York interactions, and got a bit of a laugh.

He never cracked through Mark quite like he had with the gesture of coffee. Mark had always been a big personality, but he was quiet now, and that worried Ethan. It had been so long, he could’ve changed drastically in who he was...but it was never like him to change the warmth he’d always had. Whatever this man was in front of him, he was a little dimmer now, a little more jaded.

“I should probably come clean about the actual reason I’m here,” Mark rubbed that back of his neck with a hand. The man pulled out his phone, flipping through a few photos before setting it down in front of Ethan.

With a graceful smile, Ethan uncrossed his legs, leaning forward to see the picture. 

The smiling face of his calling card looked back at him. 

_ Shit. _

Ethan grinned, hiding the sudden wave of panic that filtered through him. “Are you really still mad about all the times I doodled that on your notebook in middle school?”

Mark rolled his eyes, but his expression was good natured. “No, this is a little more serious than that.” He pushed back his coat to reveal a shiny gold badge and the butt of a gun affixed to his belt. “The short of it is, when I left home, I was recruited as an FBI Agent. My current case deals with an art thief who has been using your smiley face as their calling card.”

Ethan raised his eyebrows, letting his mouth fall open just slightly. He knew from previous practice that it made his eyes a little wider, a little more friendly, a little more innocent. “What?” He shuffled in his seat, shaking his head, “how is that even possible?”

Mark’s voice was kind and soft, and Ethan normally would’ve taken the time to appreciate the little bits of his old friend seeping through, but his mind was churning a mile a minute. One half was formulating the new plan, and the other was running through the information he already knew. 

“Have you sold that design, or shown it to anyone in the last year or so?”

He turned his head, pretending to be taken aback by all of this information. Ethan drummed his fingers across his watch, closing his eyes as he shook his head. 

He’d known Mark was FBI, but  _ nowhere _ in the files he found online did it say he was anywhere near art theft. Mark had been on homicide, major crimes, drug trafficking, but he hadn’t seen anything about him being anywhere near  _ art theft _ . 

Just his _fucking_ luck wasn't it?

“I haven’t touched it since we were kids, the thought that some thief has been using it…” Ethan shook his head. “I can’t even... How did they get their hands on it?” He splayed his hands, pretending to rationalize his thoughts. “This must just all be some really weird coincidence.” 

Mark leaned back, pulling his phone away from the table. “Right.” 

His eyes narrowed, and Ethan cooled down the 'wailing widow' routine immediately. He should’ve known that it wouldn’t work on Mark, the man knew him too well for that. They’d both changed, but not in the fundamental ways. He could still read Mark like a children’s picture book, and he didn’t doubt that Mark could do the same.

Mark waved his hand, “nevermind, I shouldn’t have even brought it up.” The man sipped his coffee, the silence enough to make that familiar creeping fear crawl its way up the back of Ethan’s neck. “You know, whatever happened to your interest in gymnastics?” 

Ethan laughed, “fizzled out as soon as I left high school.” He stared down into his coffee. “No real use for it after that.” 

Mark nodded, but didn’t speak. “Interesting.” 

Ethan could feel his control slipping. So he did what any good liar would. He stepped out onto the ice, and let it crack. 

There was a laugh that came deep from his chest, musical and sweet. “What?” He cocked his head, mouth curving up to the side. “You think that  _ I’m _ an FBI level art thief?” Ethan threw in some jargon that sounded like he’d gotten from a television show for good measure. 

“I don’t really know what to think,” Mark responded, an eyebrow raised. “But with your background...and with this, I thought-” He paused, looking away, sighing to himself. “We lost contact for a long time between...the old days and now. We’re both different than we were back then, and with this town, people can get caught up in a hell of a lot of trouble if they’re young and strapped for cash.” 

Ethan just laughed again. “That, I can agree with.” He took his last sip of his coffee. “But even if I was your thief, hypothetically, you’d never be able to catch me.” 

Mark let out a snort. “That’s bold of you to think.” 

“No, I know.” Ethan stood, pushing in his chair and slipping his phone into his back pocket. “Even when we were kids, you could never seem to catch up with me. I know that as hard as you’d try, it’d still be the same now.” Mark opened his mouth to respond but Ethan cut him off. “I’m sorry to duck out so soon, but I’ve got an appointment to make.” 

He crossed around the table, and leaned down, turning Mark's face with a light hand and kissing the man on the cheek. His breath hung in the air as he pulled away, Mark appearing utterly dumbfounded by the gesture. “It was good to see you again.” Ethan smiled as Mark struggled to find his words. He took a step backwards. “I just want you to remember. I’m always one step ahead.” 

Ethan then turned on heel, and headed down the street, leaving Mark alone at the table. A new sort of excitement hammering in his chest.


	5. File #105: Video Killed The Radio Star

“I’m always one step ahead.” A pair of eyes blinked down at Mark as he felt Ethan’s breath against his cheek. 

He tried to find something to say as he turned to watch Ethan go. He might’ve mumbled out a goodbye, or maybe a question. A confused, “ _ what?” _ or perhaps a dumbfounded,  _ “why?” _ . 

But he stayed frozen at the cafe table, blinking stupidly as his eyes focused on how the breeze whipped its way through Ethan’s clothes as he headed down the street.

A lot of strange feelings were stumbling their way through his head right now. Confusion was taking up the most space at the moment. 

He watched Ethan stop at the crosswalk, before remembering the point of all of this. And the information now saved on his phone. 

Mark grabbed for the device where it sat on the edge of the table, the end with the microphone facing towards where Ethan had been sitting seconds before.

It was a precaution he took just in case. Something he’d been taught at the Academy, but never turned up anything useful with. He’d never expected it to actually catch something he might need. 

He stopped the phone from recording, and scrubbed it back to the beginning, and hovering his finger over the play button.

Then he noticed something odd. 

The visual audio file.

It was...something was very off. Normally audio files appeared as a series of mirrored peaks and valleys with the rise and fall of the volume of a conversation. He knew that was how his phone normally recorded. But here, it appeared as a straight block of noise. 

Which could only mean-

Mark turned up his volume, playing to the audio file back. He was greeted with a mess of unintelligible sound. Even scrubbing farther through--the entire file was corrupted.

He leapt up from the table, turning to see Ethan in the distance, just beginning to step out into the street. His head was turned so that Mark could see one eye glint in the sunlight, the corner of his mouth turning ever so slightly. 

The man stopped in the middle of the street, hand raised. For a second, Mark thought he might be waving, but then he noticed that it was instead, a small device. He couldn’t recognize what exact make or model it was from a distance.

But he knew what it meant. 

And he broke into a sprint.

By now, Ethan had already crossed to the other side of the street, and as the walk light flicked to red, cars began to move through the intersection. 

Mark took off towards where he could see the top tuft of Ethan’s hair sticking out among the crowds of pedestrians. He barrelled through traffic, dodging a car that came to a stop right in front of him. The driver wailed on their horn at him, and Mark pounded a fist on the hood of their car. He shouted something about being FBI, and flashed his badge, but he was losing time, and losing Ethan in the crowd.

Mark backpedaled and ran the rest of the way across the road, spotting Ethan’s shirt as he slipped between a crowd of tourists standing with a tour guide. 

He swore that he never blinked, never for one second took his eyes off of his target, and he also swore that Ethan never sped up past a brisk walk, but Mark still couldn’t catch up with him. 

Even as he pushed his way through crowds and dodged hot dog carts and street meat vendors, Ethan always appeared just a few paces ahead of him. He called out several times, but Ethan never acknowledged his presence. 

Mark watched the man turn a corner into an alley, and he booked it to catch up, skidding to a stop in front of the opening between two buildings. 

He was met with nothing but the dimly lit nothingness of an empty backstreet. Mark lifted his head, shading his eyes from the sunlight that glinted off the buildings around him.

Ethan Nestor was nowhere to be seen. 

Mark doubled over, his breathing ragged as he stood with his hands on his knees. 

“What...the hell…” He caught his breath, rubbing sweat off of his forehead with the back of his hand. Mark fumbled for his phone again, going back over the recording.  _ Ethan had known. He had to have known about Mark’s position, the case, everything. He knew how to scramble his phone for fucks sake! _

He really didn’t want to believe that Ethan was capable of this. Mark had known the kid for years...though he supposed that Ethan wasn’t really much of a kid anymore. It had been hard to recognize him when he first spotted him stepping out of the car. He looked so much older now, the city had aged him in a way that made him actually look like an adult, not that gangy kid Mark had known back in middle school. 

He called himself a cab, told the driver the address for the headquarters, and sat in the back scrolling through his phone. Absentmindedly, he flipped through the photos on his phone, untouched by whatever Ethan had used to get into his phone, swiping between the photos from his mom, and those from the crime scenes. 

Mark didn’t even know why he was doing it, searching through them with no real purpose. But there was this feeling. This strange blooming emotion that sent little shocks of excitement through his stomach. 

He hadn’t felt that way since working some of the interesting cases upstate. 

For some reason, this now fascinated him. Something about that glint in Ethan’s eye when he said that Mark would never be able to catch him. 

This wasn’t a game. He knew this wasn’t a game, this was federal crime. 

But then why was he excited?

Why was he hoping that Ethan would make good on his promise, keep him on his toes, keep him moving? 

He let out a laugh under his breath. Mark always had liked a good puzzle. 

His memory was okay, enough that when he closed his eyes he could repeat back portions of the conversation. Mark tried to recall Ethan’s face. It was easier to look for lies when you knew they were there. 

All that appeared in his mind were the green of his eyes, like snakeskin, or a lime on the edge of a martini glass.

He paid his fair as the driver pulled up in front of the entrance of the FBI Headquarters, repeating Ethan’s words in his head. Mark savored how they felt, how they sounded. Spoken differently here than there, but still all the same. 

Had they meant something more, maybe a clue?

He was reading too far into this.

Mark just had to-

His surroundings came back to him all at once, and he swerved around an opening door to avoid a frazzled looking Agent as they came down the hall. 

He shook off the feelings, cleared his head with a few deep breath, and walked to where his desk was pushed up against the far wall. Amy looked up from where hers was stationed across from his, eyebrows raised in question.

“Anything?”

“Something,” he sighed. Mark unlocked his phone and opened the audio app. “Take a look.” 

She took gingerly it, pressing play before recoiling quickly. “This is all just static.”

“Exactly.” Mark slid into his chair, signing into his email as he began drafting a message. 

Amy narrowed her eyes as she handed him back his phone. “What the hell are you talking about?” She leaned back into her chair. “Who exactly did you meet with?”

Mark’s eyes flicked over the words in the email. “Ehh-” he pressed send with a single click and sat back, mirroring her position,“-doesn’t really matter.” 

“If someone scrambled your audio data, I think it kinda matters.” 

He waved his hand, “s’ fine.” 

She let out a long sigh, crossing her arms over her chest. 

Mark lolled his head over to look at her. “Are you pouting? What are you, twelve?” 

“Thirteen, actually,” Amy’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. 

He pressed his lips together. “If it pans out, I’ll tell you. But for now, just keep…” he motioned his hand towards the papers on her desk. “Keep doing that.” 

“Fine, whatever,” she grumbled in defeat. “I still think you should be telling your  _ partner _ about things that have to do with our shared case.”

“Then for the sake of the argument, let’s pretend that that wasn’t about the case.”

She grinned and held up a hand. “Then you admit that you should tell me about it if it's for the case.” 

“Yeah, yeah yeah, and I told you, if it pans out, you'll get the full rundown.” He stood, jabbing a finger out as he noticed the email come through from Wiley. “Now remember always, do as I say, not as I do, rookie, okay?” 

Amy rolled her eyes at him as Mark snapped and winked, grabbing his phone off the table. “And if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with the tech geek.” 

As he turned around, Amy cupped her hands over her mouth, “Go get ‘em tiger!” 

Mark whipped back around, using two fingers to gesture to his eyes and then to hers in an ‘I’m watching you motion’, before nearly running into a coffee machine while walking backwards. 

He jogged downstairs to where the cyber crimes division kept all of their more expensive computers and databases. Wiley sat at a console made up of three different monitors and enough wires to wrap around the building twice.

The man held out a hand, “got something for me?” 

“Uh, two things actually,” Mark placed his phone in Wiley’s hand. “Someone scrambled the data on an audio file in my phone.” 

Wiley looked up from the computer screen he’d been staring at to glance at the phone. He narrowed his eyes, pausing for a moment. “...Really?” 

“Um, yep.”

Wiley jabbed at the phone. “This model got scrambled?”

“Yes, Wiley.” 

“Oh sweet goodness, this will be fun.” 

Mark shook his head slightly in confusion. “Wait, fun how?” 

“Well, these models are supposed to be crack proof, even some of our top notch gear can’t get through it. So it’ll be fun to figure out the code used to break your phone.” Wiley was almost bouncing in his seat now. “And then we can adapt  _ that _ new near unbreakable code into our database, so our system is even harder to hack.” He looked up with a grin. “Isn’t that wonderful.”

“It’s uh,” Mark swallowed slowly. “It’s something.” 

_ Was Ethan capable of hacking FBI level data?  _ What had happened to this kid after he left high school?

Wiley plugged Mark’s phone into the computer. “This will be done for you in about a day or so, until then, you can use a burner. I’ll have your data transferred into it for the time being, and that’ll just take about an hour.” 

“Good, good.” 

The man looked up with a slight smile. “You said there was something else?”

“Yeah,” Mark looked away slightly, fiddling with the hem of his pocket. “I need a background check into Ethan Nestor.”


	6. File #106: Material Girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> late chapter sorry!!! ya bastard was out of town AND sick, so it made for a double whammy of ick. b u t, that means that you'll get a chapter tomorrow too! (probably)

Ethan watched from his window as Mark scanned the alley for any trace of him. He’d managed to sneak inside through the back door of his apartment complex, evading Mark by only a few seconds. 

He now stood with his phone in hand, fiddling with his headphones as he waited for Mark to catch his breath and leave. He plugged the earbuds into his phone and listened in to the audio that was currently streaming live from Mark’s phone. 

The man huffed for a minute or so before he hailed a cab, settling down in it. Ethan chuckled at the driver’s attempts to make small talk as he spun his chair around, sliding down into it before connecting his device to a series of monitors that he flicked to life. 

With a few movements of his mouse, he separated the audio, camera video, and phone screen recording onto different windows, monitoring each of them with ease. He watched as Mark leaned back against the seat of the car, noting how the man scrolled through photos of what Ethan assumed were the scenes of his crime. Ethan himself hadn’t had the chance to see them in the daylight yet. But here they were, the fruits of his labor. 

Ethan grinned as Mark’s eyebrows knit together, trying to parse out everything that had just happened. The look of confusion was satisfying on its own.  Ethan basked in it all. 

Eventually, Mark arrived at what Ethan assumed was the FBI Headquarters. In another window, Ethan dropped a location pin, and began recording Mark’s GPS coordinates. He’d watched this done hundreds of times on other targets, but it was one of the first times doing it on his own.

Another motion of his mouse, and the audio began to record as a woman’s voice echoed from a few feet away from Mark’s phone. Ethan crossed his fingers, and was rewarded with Mark placing his phone on what he assumed was his desk. 

_ “Anything?” _ Her voice was light. Surprisingly kind for an Agent’s. If he could get an extra minute…

Ethan opened another window, queueing the phone’s WiFi preferences to get it to hook itself into the network. 

_ “Something.” _ He heard Mark sigh.  _ “Take a look.” _ The phone began to move, the camera angling itself up to show the face of a woman, clearly concerned.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to hack all the way into the network after all. Well, if he wanted all of this to be clean, he would, but finding this woman’s identity wouldn’t be difficult. 

Ethan took a snapshot of her face, and began a search of all of the active Agents stationed at the FBI Headquarters. 

_ “This is all just static.” _ Her face was fuzzy as she turned to look up at Mark, handing back the phone to him, which he set back facing upwards on the table. 

_ “Exactly.” _ Ethan could hear the clicking of a keyboard on the other end.

_ “What the hell are you talking about?"  _ He rolled his eyes, Mark had always been a secretive prick like that when they were kids. Ethan had just assumed he’d grown out of it, but apparently... " _ Who exactly did you meet with?” _ A cold shock spiked down Ethan’s spine.

The line was quiet for a moment, and Ethan held his breath 

_ “Ehh-” _ Ethan squeezed his eyes shut. _ “-doesn’t really matter.” _ He blinked stupidly at the response. Was Mark trying to hide who he was? 

_ “If someone scrambled your audio data, I think it kinda matters.” _ So at least _she_ was  _ smart _ . 

The window he was using to check her identity came up with a match, and he smiled to himself as her information popped in. “Hello Agent Nelson,” he murmured. 

_ “S’ fine.”  _ Mark replied. Yup, still as obtuse and stubborn as he'd been as a kid. 

Ethan pulled and copied her file, sending it onto the hard drive he kept next to the sealed can of gasoline under his desk--just in case. He skimmed the section for her current assignments, finding that only her and Mark were on his particular case. 

The database had hyperlinked Mark’s casefile to hers, and he clicked on it, which took him to the file of one Mark Fischbach. He smiled at the little things as he read through, mouse already hovering over the download button.

But when he reached the bottom, an interesting notice caught his attention. 

A bright red [CLASSIFIED]. 

_ “Are you pouting? What are you, twelve?”  _

Ethan tuned back into the conversation happening in front of him. 

_ “Thirteen, actually.”  _ Ethan decided at that moment that he liked this woman.

_ “If it pans out, I’ll tell you. For now, just keep…Keep doing that.”  _

Ethan shook his head with a smile, finding the code on his drive that could eat away at the coded classifications. He watched as the section slowly began to unlock itself, code detangling and unwinding as he typed in a few commands.

The code was simultaneously hooking in and away. Just as she’d made it to work. He could never have fathomed how to make something this complicated. Ethan still had no clue how it worked. But she’d left it to him for a reason. For good use. 

Ethan didn’t even realize that he wasn’t paying attention to his targets until Mark’s phone camera began to move.

_ “And if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with the tech geek.”  _ Ethan raised an eyebrow as he attempted to focus harder on the code. Well, this might complicate things.

As Mark began to leave the main area, he heard Agent Nelson’s muffled response.  _ “I bet you do, go get ‘em tiger.” _ Yep, Ethan liked her. 

Ethan swallowed slowly as his eyes flickered between screens. He didn’t have enough time. He would have to choose between hooking into the network and taking Mark’s full file…

Ethan heard Mark greet the man he assumed was the tech geek in question. The two made small talk, and Ethan grimaced, hoping they’d keep it up for just a few seconds more-

He could get both, he could do it-

Ethan saw through the camera that the man was moving to plug the phone in, they were both almost done, seconds from finishing. But those were seconds he didn’t have. 

With a heavy finger, Ethan canceled both of the programs. 

As the program began to destroy itself, which was normally his favorite part of the whole process, Ethan swore as loudly as he could. He should’ve known he wouldn’t have time for both. Ethan should never have been so stupid….what would they all think about him? Failing this massively at an easy task simply because he was curious.

Every time he’d ever messed up, it was because he hadn’t followed the plan. He stood, kicking his chair across the room. 

They’d  _ trusted _ him with this. He couldn’t fucking mess it up because someone from his past wanted to go toe to toe for a few rounds. 

Ethan centered himself, closing his eyes and letting himself breath for a moment. 

He let them open, and turned back to the computer. 

At least he had one respite. Something that he’d been looking forward to. 

The plans were massive, they’d taken months to pull together. The big heist, the one that would make everyone take them seriously. 

Ethan opened his music, queuing up ABBA’s  _ Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! _ , and closed his eyes, going over the plan one more time.


	7. File #107: 4AM

Mark was woken up sometime past four am by his phone buzzing off of his nightstand. He slapped at it a few times, thinking he could simply hit snooze, but was instead greeted by a voice.

“Fischbach?” The voice echoed in the phone’s speaker.

Mark sat straight up, grabbing for the device and putting it to his ear. “Uh, yeah, this is he.” 

“Hey, it’s Nelson, sorry to wake you, but-”

“Nah, nah.” He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, turning to check the time on his nightstand. 4:38. “S’fine. Someone dead?” 

“No, there was a break in about an hour ago at NYMCA.” 

“Come again?” Mark slid out of bed, grabbing his pants off the ground and struggling into them with one hand. 

“New York Museum of Classical Art?” He could hear her sigh. “Aren’t you supposed to know these things.”

“This is my first art theft case, rookie. I know about as much as you do, and I-” He grunted as he tightened his belt. “I definitely do not memorize the acronyms of local art museums.”

“NYMCA is a globally recognized art museum with numerous priceless works, and enough clout within our sectors to make a fuss if we don’t go  _ now _ .” 

“NYMCA, NYMCA, wait are they the ones with that famous Picasso?” 

“They’re the one with the Monet and O’Keefe galleries, along with several Chihuly installations and even a lesser known Van Gogh.” He could tell that she was on the move. “But yes, they do have  _ Sky Over Yellow Water _ .” 

“The one with the naked guy on the boat!” Mark tightened his tie. “I fucking love that painting.” 

“Alright, I’m almost to your address.” 

“Wait,” he stopped, standing up straight. “How the hell did you get my address?”

“Amherst.” 

“Fucking Amherst.” 

“Do you always swear so much when you’re tired?” 

“Piss off rookie.” 

Amy laughed on the other line, and he could hear her get out of a car, slamming the door behind her. “Apartment 347, right?” 

“No wait I’m almost done-” 

“Coming up.” 

Mark set the phone on speaker on top of the little shelf where he hung his keys, and rushed to buckle his holster. He pulled on his boots, and hurried to the door, grabbing the phone and his house keys, and pulling the door open.

Amy stood outside, hand poised to knock. 

“Ready to go?” He asked, mostly out of breath. She raised her eyebrows, peering to get a look inside as he closed the door behind him. “Nuh-uh,” he shut and locked the door. “No way in hell am I ever letting you inside my apartment.” 

“Worried I’ll make fun of your ‘man cave’ or whatever?” 

Mark narrowed his eyes and disconnected their call. “I’m going to talk to Amherst when we get this over with.” 

“You can try,” Amy chuckled as the two headed towards the elevator. “But I’m her new favorite apparently.” Mark pretended to pout. “I am! She had me up for coffee and everything.” Amy pressed the button to take them downstairs. “Wiley said that that means I’m her new favorite.”

Mark soured a little, “It just means that she’s probably using you to spy on me, make sure I don’t get into any more trouble.” 

“What exactly did you _do_ that you hate yourself for so much?” Amy held up a hand. “And no, I’m not going to read your file, I want you to tell me.” 

Mark shook his head. “We went _over_ this. You read the file, and then you’ll know.” The elevator came to a stop, and he stepped off, scratching the back of his arm. He hadn’t done that in a long time. “I, uh, I...just. Nevermind.” 

Amy’s car was parked out front, motor still humming in the early morning air. He climbed into the passenger seat as she got into the front. “Sorry,” she said softly. “I’ll stop bringing it up.” 

“Thanks,” he muttered. 

She turned her head to face him. “Coffee?” 

“Doubt anything good’s open at four am, but yeah, sure.” 

-

The two of them now stood in front of the marbled front door of the New York Museum of Classical Art. It was quiet, the CSI team wouldn’t be called in for another hour or so. 

Mark raised his hand, knocking on the front door. From within, a security guard appeared, pushing the door open. In tandem, Mark and Amy flipped out their badges as the man wiped his brow, “FBI?” 

“Yup,” Mark clipped his badge back onto his belt. 

The man nodded, mouth still hanging open. Amy cocked her head in that friendly way she did with suspects and witnesses alike. “May we come in?” 

All he seemed to be able to do was nod as he let them inside. “I called the curators and the NYMCA Board of Directors, and they immediately rerouted to you, apparently the FBI deals with this sort of thing.” The man swallowed nervously, leading them down through the halls. Mark recognized this place, but it’d been long enough that they were only brief flashes in the back of his mind. 

The guy looked young for a security guard, maybe twenty something, and definitely one of those guys who post shirtless mirror selfies to show off their abs. Mark would know. He used to be one of them. 

“You got a name?” Mark asked finally. He was surprised that Amy hadn’t said anything at all once they’d gotten inside. Though, she looked tired, and he didn’t blame her for hanging back. 

The man looked back at him, clearing his throat and nodding. “Uh, Mitchell.” 

Mark nodded, “well Mitchell, we’re gonna get this all sorted out, there’s no need to be so nervous.” He laughed lightly, which seemed to make Mitchell even jumpier. “You’re shaking like a chihuahua.”

“You don’t understand, the thing is-” He stopped in front of a heavy set of doors which were painted to appear like they weren’t made of foot and a half thick metal. Either side was swung open, revealing a darkened interior. “No one was supposed to know about this place, it’s out of the way, and heavily guarded, for good reason. The most expensive works are kept in here, in partial cold storage. I’m supposed to check in here five times a night. These are supposed to only be able to be opened by two present guards, and someone up in our security booth giving the okay.” 

Amy stepped forward, her eyebrows furrowing. “Wait, I read about this, this is like the Area 51 of security vaults, right?” Mark gave her a look, and she shot back with her typical ‘you giant slacker’ eye roll. 

Mitchell’s expression screwed up a little before he nodded slowly. “Uh, yeah, I guess? It’s supposed to be completely impenetrable. But  _ apparently _ , it’s not.” 

“And you heard nothing? Saw nothing?”

The guy shook his head, fiddling with the top button on his collar. “No, nothing.” He groaned loudly. “God I’m going to be so screwed, they’re going to fire me before they even get here.” 

“Let’s just see how much was taken before you jump to conclusions,” Mark said trying to make the guy feel better, but watched as his face fell further. 

He stepped inside, feeling around for a panel on the sidewall as Mark and Amy both headed inside towards the center of the room. The lights began to brighten, and he found himself in a room full of paintings. Drawn on with black sharpie marker.

Paintings of prim women at tea had penises drawn on their foreheads, and were adorned with tattoos that included a colorful amount of graphic languages. Art of landscapes turned into portraits, and portraits into landscapes. Comments on the art were often written below in a few word sentences. Statues were given new sharpie glasses and mustaches, and an unfortunate mirror was given a crude reflection.

“Oh shit.” 

Mark turned to see what Amy was commenting on, and felt a wave of cold panic and burning anger rush through him. On the far wall, a painting of a man that looked eerily like Mark was written over in black sharpie.

**HELLO AGENT FISCHBACH!**

Amy whipped towards him. “Do you know who did this?” 

“Yeah,” Mark grumbled. “I definitely know that idiot.” 


	8. File #108: In Plain Sight

Ethan sat himself down in the bay window of the cafe across the street from the Museum of Classical Art, watching all of the chaos go down as dramatically as he’d hoped it would. The front entrance was cluttered with news vans, FBI cars carting out evidence, and regular people who happened to stumble upon the site.

It was all glorious. 

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, shooting a quick text to Mark before setting it on the table. 

Ethan took a sip of his coffee. It something fancy, French, and sweet, he couldn’t exactly remember the name, but it was good. Definitely a victory drink. 

Every part of him was buzzing as he fiddled with the sleeves of his shirt. This had been probably the most intelligently he'd thought through one of these plans. It was easier than he expected, a lot of these jobs had been, but even the tiny little details that he’d assumed would make him slip up went off without a hitch.

His particular...artistry in this specific heist had taken him a bit longer than he would’ve liked, but he was certain that the good Agent would love it. And by love it, he meant the man would probably try to grill him the second their eyes met.

Not that Ethan wouldn’t like that. 

The pressure and tension gave him a strange thrill that most medical professionals would probably use to diagnose him with a plethora of different things. 

He thought of himself like a diamond, being pressed under years of stress trying to make ends meet. Not only did it make him shine, but it also made him hungry for those feelings again. That didn’t matter, as he could see Mark in the distance, squinting at the buildings that surrounded NYMCA. 

Ethan grinned, flipping through his phone before slipping in his pocket. He sipped his drink slowly as Mark noticed the coffeeshop in the distance, and began to storm towards it. 

Ethan turned his head as a barista called his name, and he stood to grab Mark’s drink from the counter, settling back down into the seat that faced the door the second Mark slammed it open. 

“I’d wondered if it was you in there!” Ethan made his face soft and pleasant as Mark pressed his lips together, practically stomping over to leer above him. “I don’t mean to take you from you work, but-”

“If you really think you’re not about to be arrested right now,” Mark shook his head, as if everything happening right now was too much. “I know it’s you, there’s no one else that I’d spoken to about this that would  _ know _ , and-” 

Ethan put his lips over his straw, quirking his eyebrows upwards. “Why don’t you sit down? I got you a coffee.”

“No, I’m not about to sit down next to someone who just definitely  _ robbed _ the New York Museum of Classical Art.” 

“You think your  _ coffee  _ robbed NYMCA?” Ethan tutted with the tip of his tongue. “Really Mark, aren’t you supposed to be an FBI Agent?” 

Mark opened his mouth, closed it, pressed his lips together, and then took the seat across from Ethan. He paused, and took a drink of the black coffee. “You’re really going to sit here and try to convince me that this isn’t you?” Ethan shrugged, staring down at his drink. “Because I think we both know that most normal people can’t easily scramble an FBI Agent’s phone.” 

“It would be odd for that to happen,” he raised a concerned eyebrow. “Did that happen to you?” 

Mark stared him dead in the face, eyes searching for fallacy. He appeared to find none. “How do you do that so easily?” 

“What?”

“Lie?” 

“I’m not lying.” Ethan replied softly, trying to play up the kid he’d left behind at the small town high school graduation. “Everything I’ve said has been the truth.” 

Mark crossed his arms across his chest. “Then why contact me, why were you even here in the first place unless you knew?”

“I was here to wait for an acting agent, we had a meeting today, but she had to cancel last minute, so I decided to finish my coffee and watch everything happening across the street." He stirred his drink the straw. "Any logical person would be interesting." He watched Mark's expression carefully. "Because I saw the FBI, I thought of you. And I was curious.” Ethan tipped his head to the side, trying to read Mark as he puzzled through what Ethan was saying. “About who might be using my smiley face for evil.” 

“Right,” Mark turned his head towards where his feet hung above the ground. “Yeah, right. I’m sorry, I just-” He looked up towards where the swarms of people were crowding around the front steps of the building. When he turned back to Ethan, his eyes were unchanged. He was still suspicious, but for some reason, hiding it now. Odd. 

It made sense, though. 

Ethan assumed that Mark would try and get close to him now, try and pry through everything he was. He’d heard him ask that kid Wiley to get a background check, and Ethan wondered if Mark had even gotten anything from it.  Speaking of Wiley, Ethan needed his help on a few things...But that was for later. 

But Ethan didn't want to have his feelings played with. Not this time. Not again. 

“You still think it’s me, don’t you?” He saw the slight widening of Mark’s eyes, hooking into that emotion. Ethan shook his head, “you would blame me, wouldn’t you. After everything, you still want to bastardize everything I am.” 

“Well, I, I mean-”

“I mean, I get it, not understanding who you are and what you want, lashing out-" 

"Ethan it was never like that."

Ethan let some true anger cut through his face and into Mark, and shutting him up easily. Mark closed his eyes and scratched the back of his neck. "Okay, maybe it was like that. But I was dumb, and I didn't understand the power had, and-"

"You didn't, you really didn't. And you still don't." 

He saw Mark tighten his lips. "How many times do I have to apologize before we let all of that go? I thought that us meeting again might change things. Well, I didn't plan...that wasn't at all why I asked to meet, I'll be honest now...but now that you're here. I did want to change things, y'know? Back then?" Ethan could feel the tension shifting at the table. "I do want to change things. I really did miss you all that time. I hadn't thought about you recently, but when I did-" 

All of this was too real for Ethan all of a sudden. "Y'know what, it's fine," he said softly. "Let's just...not talk about that. Okay?" 

"Alright." 

The silence lingered over the conversation for a few minutes, the two just sipping coffee and daring the other to speak first. Ethan was determined not to give in. 

"I didn't know that these cases could actually be...interesting," Mark finally spoke. 

"Hmm?" 

"All of the art theft and shit, I'm used to working like, high level cases, murder, arson, the sort. I'd always thought these cases were for pansies, but this one. It's making me rethink every path I've taken in the Bureau."

"Hmm." 

"Whoever is behind this," Mark paused. "I hope that they understand that they're doing wrong."

"And what are you going to do about it?” Ethan felt the poison enter the edges of his words. The cold blade of the knife-like twitches in his voice he’d perfected over the years. 

Mark didn't even seem to notice. He just seemed tired. "I don't know." 

God was he really gonna make Ethan feel bad for him?

Ethan turned his head towards the street. “Do you even want to do anything about it?" He let his words drop carefully. "Don’t you like a good chase?” Mark swallowed slowly, furrowing his eyebrows. “Nipping on the heels of some masterful ‘evil doer.” 

“Um,” he lifted his eyes up from the table. “I really don’t know.” The pause was long enough for Ethan to let his gaze return. “Sometimes I’d like a leg up, maybe enough to get me a step forward.”

“Don’t you already have a goldmine of information?”

Mark rolled his eyes, “you’d be surprised how little this, ‘masterful evil doer’, leaves behind.” 

“Your words, not mine,” Ethan said coyly. 

“Right.” He wrapped his hands around his coffee, looking down at his expression in the still liquid. “I’ve never worked a case like this before,” he said softly. Mark’s head raised. “For now, I just want to see where it goes.” 

Ethan sat back in his chair, satisfied. “So,” he asked finally. “Where did you find it this time?” 

“Find what?”

“The face, the one the person’s been using?” 

Mark’s eyes widened, and he leapt up, nearly knocking over his coffee cup in the process. He hurried out the door, giving Ethan just enough time to press the button in his pocket, slip his cup into his jacket, and head towards the back door. 

Ethan straddled his motorcycle, pulling his helmet over his head. He peeled out onto the main street, whipping around the corner, and slowing as he went past the front of NYMCA. 

At the top of the building, a giant yellow banner fluttered in the wind. The smiley face watched the people below with a devilish grin. 

Mark stood out in the middle of it all, hands in his hair, staring up at it. 

Ethan grinned beneath his helmet, and disappeared into the city streets. 


	9. File #109: Milkshake & Fries

Mark was burnt out by the end of all of it, sitting on the fender of his car with his head in his hands, massaging his temples. It had nearly been 14 hours now since he was called in, and his headache had only gotten worse since the banner had unfurled above a crowd of onlookers.

Now he couldn’t go five feet before being asked about the ‘Smiley Guy’, and i f one more person asked him about it, he might as well just punch them. 

He didn’t care whatever paperwork Amherst gave him, one of these fuckers was getting punched.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and barely kept himself from reeling back for a hit. He found Amy standing next to him, water bottle in hand. She looked just about as exhausted as he felt, and when the water bottle was shoved into his face, he took it gratefully. 

“Please tell me we’re almost done.” 

“I think so,” he sighed softly, taking a long drink from the bottle. “They’re just wrapping a few things up inside, and then we can go.” 

“Thank fucking jesus.” She took the seat next to him, leaning back against the trunk of his car. Mark handed the water back to her, and she capped it and held it with both hands like it was the only thing still tethering her to reality. “Hey, I meant to ask, where did you go earlier, like before the banner appeared.” 

“Uh,” he stammered. Mark hadn’t even realized that she’d noticed he was gone. “I had to uh, bad stomach ache. I think I ate some bad food last night.”

“Right,” she nodded slowly. “It was just kinda suspicious that you happened to come back  _ just _ as the smile appeared.” Amy cocked her head to the side. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with your mystery contact, would it?” 

"Well..." What was the use of hiding it from her anymore? If Ethan was going to be that bold, he was going to be too. Mark turned his head towards her, considering it for a moment. “How do you feel about burgers?” 

\---

“So, your old friend from childhood used to draw this smiley face, and you haven’t seen him in like nearly ten years, and you meet with him now, and he's been weird about all of it, and you can’t prove it, but you’re pretty sure he’s behind it and also taunting you.” Amy dipped a fry in her milkshake and tossed it into her mouth. “Did I get that right?” 

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Most of it.” 

“He’s an actor?”

“Apparently.” Mark had barely touched his food, arms crossed against his chest as he stared straight ahead. “He’s-” He squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s like he’s in my head. He was always...like that, able to read people, understand them. It was annoying as hell, but it was also in a weird way, endearing.” 

“Sweet,” Amy said softly. 

They sat in a quiet diner, the lights of the city outside just beginning to flicker on. Mark let his head fall back, staring up at the ceiling fan as it provided some of the only sound in the building besides the tinny 80’s music coming from the shitty painted over speaker at the far end of the room.

Today had been a trip. He was beyond exhausted, and really just wanted to head home and crash, but he felt like he owed Amy an explanation. 

She was really just trying to do her job, and though she was a little nosey at times, it didn’t seem like she was doing it to be rude. Just from looking at her, he knew that work was her life, the bags under her eyes, the constant drip of coffee, and the notifications on her phone always work emails and never texts from friends or family. 

Amy was just as alone in this city as he felt, she just hid it better than he did. 

“How did you first meet him?”

He snapped his head back forward, letting out a soft, “hmm?”, before registering what she’d said. “Uh, our parents were friends, so we got dumped together pretty often when we were young. We managed to become actual friends, despite the fact that I was a few years older than him, and that our parents had basically orchestrated our whole relationship.” 

“Mm,” Amy nodded, sitting back in her chair. “So were you two like…” she lifted her eyebrows inquisitively.

“No, what?” Mark blinked in surprise. “Where did you get that idea?” 

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, lifting a hand. Amy gestured with splayed fingers in his general direction. “I just can’t figure out your...vibe.”

“My...vibe?” He raised a confused eyebrow. “Is this some new slang I don’t know about.”

“No, like,” she looked around the room. “It’s like, are you…”

“Nelson I’m not sure it’s appropriate to be asking your coworker about their sexuality.”

He’d never seen anyone go red so fast in his life. She sputtered out an apology quicker than he could even begin laughing.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he chuckled. “But no, he and I never...not like that. Not formally.” 

“Formally?” 

“Uh, nevermind, doesn’t matter.” He waved a hand. Mark wasn’t feeling so nauseous anymore, and he reached forward for his burger. He looked back up to see that Amy was staring at him with an eyebrow raised. “It’d take too long to explain.” 

“We have time,” she shrugged.

Mark swallowed down the chunk of burger in his mouth slowly, blinking as he looked up. “It’s uh, well, um.” He set down his food and took in a deep breath. “He and I just have some...well.” Mark looked away, trying to focus on anything else than Amy’s face. “I...made a mistake when we were in high school. I made...lots of them, and I tried to forget about it, and just wait for it to go away, but it never really did.” 

Amy nodded along, humming in response. “And let me guess, you never apologized?”

“I tried, but they...what I said wasn’t good enough.” He sighed, and tried to focus on the room around him. The past ate at him, it always had. Mark missed the old days, the nostalgia and warmth of a time before, but he also felt the emptiness and cold, the parts he’d tried to forget. The parts of himself he still didn’t understand. “And it’s...seeing him now, he’s a completely different person. Everything warm and kind about him has been replaced with this, strange facade. And I don’t even know if it’s a facade either, he could just be different now, and I just don’t...understand.”

“Do you trust him?” 

Mark let out a laugh. “Not at all. I know he’s lying through his teeth, but I also know that I can’t prove it. I’ve had Wiley do a background check on him, and it barely pulled up anything.”

“Y’know what they say about squeaky clean records though,” Amy pointed a fry at him. “They usually have something to hide.”

“Yeah I guess, but that’s usually if they’ve hopped identities. He’s still the same guy I knew in high school. The same dude who bought me a slushie when my girlfriend broke up with me in middle school, the one who used to do all of my english homework because I hated grammar so much, the guy who…” Mark shook his head. “It’s like he was stuck under a ray that scrambled him around until he barely resembled anything he used to be.”

“I don’t even know what I would do if some random guy from my past just like, appeared out of nowhere. Like some dorky guy who used to...like Jake Yarrow.” Amy said intently. 

“Jake Yarrow?” Mark questioned with a smile. 

“Yeah yeah, some really smart dude in my grade in high school. He was a huge nerd, but so fucking smart, like does calculus for fun smart.” Amy focused back in on him. “Is he smart like that?” 

“Not like that,” he rubbed the back of his hand habitually. “But a smart that worries me. He’s resourceful, and a quick thinker, and I doubt that I’d very easily be able to catch him in a lie. It’s like he thinks three steps ahead.” He bounced his finger on his knee. “Like he’s already had the conversation in his head, like he’s reading off of a script.”

“Freaky,” Amy interjected. “But hey, if you need, I could like, tail him.” 

Mark turned to look directly at her. “Wait, that might actually be a really good idea. I doubt he saw you when we met today. If you could-”

“I would love to,” she pushed her empty plate forward as she finished off her last fry. “See! If you just tell me things, I can be very helpful.”

Mark rolled his eyes as he pulled out his wallet and tossed a few bills onto the table. “Yeah, yeah, I guess so.” He stood, pulling out his phone. Mark flicked through his photos until he found the photo of Ethan he’d saved from one of his social media pages. He sent Amy the photo, and pushed the device back into his pocket. 

“We can look for him tomorrow, I need a long fucking nap. For now, just try your best to memorize his face.” 

Amy’s smile seemed to take up her whole face. “I can do that, easy.”

“Don’t get too excited, rookie.” But Mark couldn’t help but smile back.


	10. File #110: The Imperfect Art of Spotting a Tail

Ethan stood at the reception desk of the Museum of Modern Art, hands in his pockets as he waited in line. The receptionist was a bubbly looking woman who greeted him with a smile as he approached.

“How can I help you today?” 

“Yeah, can I get one ticket for the 12 o’clock guided tour?” 

The woman nodded, “of course!” She typed a few things into the computer as Ethan surveyed the area. Clearly the local art museums were on high alert after his last stunt. 

It had been nearly two weeks since he’d unveiled his calling card for the whole world to see, and the whole room was buzzing with a mixture of a nervously excited energy.

Security guards stood at attention, and Ethan craned to hear the chatter of those around him, grinning as he caught whispers of the name they’d been using for him on the news. 

He turned back to the receptionist as she began printing off his ticket. “Stuff must be pretty crazy here with all of that stuff about the Smiley Thief.”

The receptionist let out a long breath, nodding. “You wouldn’t believe the security they’ve been putting in. I don’t even know why they’re doing it though, it seems mostly like this guy only hits places at night.”

Ethan raised his eyebrows and hummed like this information was new to him. 

“But at least it makes the job a little more interesting,” she said as she handed him his ticket. “Alright, you’ll want to meet over under that sign there-” she pointed to a sign that was labeled TOURS, “at twelve. For now, you can just wander the museum, or check out our gift shop.” 

“Thanks,” Ethan grinned. He turned to the fishbowl of candy on the lip of the counter and raised his eyebrows as he pointed at it.

“Yeah, sure, feel free.” 

Ethan grabbed out a mystery flavor sucker as he headed for the large windows at the front of the building, taking a seat in one of their plush, strangely shaped chairs. He watched the crowds of people as they passed, taking note of anyone who had his name on their lips.

People would be surprised if he told them he actually enjoyed art museums not just for the thrill of the heist. Art had always been important to him, images of people, feelings, dark emotions, thoughts that could never be expressed through words. It fascinated him just as much as it made him money. 

One of the big televisions that sat adjacent to him that normally ran ads for different exhibits in the museum was playing a live feed of the 24 hour Smiley-Watch, where journalists and amateurs alike all weighed in on their different theories. After it had broken that this was the fifth high profile heist by the Smiley, people had gone nuts. It had taken New York by storm overnight, and he was loving all of it.

A few places were even selling merch of it now, but that was almost to be expected. He was surprised he hadn’t gotten in on it.

But with Mark breathing down his neck, it had been difficult. 

He hadn’t heard from the man personally since the morning they’d spoken, but he’d seen him. There’d been a few FBI conferences with Mark in a suit that was a little too tight, moving through a pre-written speech he clearly hated. Ethan liked staring into the pits of his eyes on screen until it felt like Mark was staring back at him. 

Sometimes it seemed like he was talking directly to Ethan, his words pointed and at times, quietly hateful. He loved all of that too.

At five minutes to noon, Ethan stood, stretched, and headed towards where a small group of touristy looking people waited. He noted each of them, two families with kids, an older man in a tweed suit, and a group of old women. 

And a woman in a Yankees baseball cap, pulled slightly down over her face. Her hair was short and straight around her shoulders, colored a dark brown.  Her clothes were plain, and she checked her phone periodically for what he assumed was the time, despite the small watch on her wrist. Ethan made sure she didn’t see him notice her, but kept a good eye on her as a man in a crisp white shirt, black pants, and a small red name tag walked over. 

He introduced himself as Kevin, and asked them to follow him as he began his spiel about the museum’s history. Ethan kept the back, hands in his pockets as he pulled out the mystery sucker and unwrapped it, popping it into his mouth. Blue raspberry. Lucky day. 

The woman watched him out of the corner of her eye, but Ethan simply trudged on, half-listening to what Kevin was saying about a painting of a red cow. He nodded and hummed along with the other tourists, dawdling and asking a few minor questions about the portraits that caught his eye. 

He turned his head upwards as the headed into the South Wing, noting the three cameras around different corners. Ethan flicked his eyes around for the breaker box, finding it hiding on the light panel. A good place for it to appear seamless from patrons, but an easy grab for thieves like himself.

As they rounded towards it, he got a good look at the system. A  _ T-F1E _ system. He hadn’t seen one of these in a few years, and was surprised that the MOMA of all places hadn’t updated to a  _ S3-86 Hammerhead  _ yet. 

He’d need to go back through his things to even find their T-F1E codebreaker. Last he’d left it, it was in a box of Christmas decorations from back in the good old days. Especially with all of the people he’d loved back then currently- 

Ethan didn’t like to think about that very much anymore. 

But this was why he was doing this. So that they could come home to a nice little nest egg before they became the thieves they were supposed to be. Ones with renown and namesake. 

They turned the corner, and Ethan had to suppress a smile as he saw the display across the way from him. 

Kevin did that stereotypical tour guide turn, as he held out his hands and grinned towards the group. “For those of you who have kept in the art world loop, you’ve probably heard of the Smiley Thief. Our interns set this up, because we happen to have a few of the replicas of the paintings that were recently vandalized.”

A few of the paintings Ethan had drawn on appeared in front of him, with plexiglass stands in front of them with the replicas of certain drawings he’d done...all of them the more PG. He was sad to see that  _ Lady With Dick On Forehead _ didn’t make the MOMA cut. 

“Though we here at the MOMA don’t condone vandalizing priceless art, apparently the Smiley Thief doesn’t either, as it was discovered that the art at NYMCA were actually all just  _ also _ very convincing replicas.” Kevin continued on about the importance of catching the thief, but also how thievery affects the art world, and Ethan tuned him out.

So they’d gotten that far at least, Mark knew that he'd replaced the paintings before enacting his own masterpieces. He was a thief after all, the art was worth more to him clean than tarnished. Ethan had bought some fakes from a dealer online, and besides, if he made the Smiley big enough, they'd sell for their own pretty penny soon enough.

He continued to circle after the tour guide, keeping an eye on the woman keeping an eye on him. She would place her hand to her ear every few minutes, which she tried to play off as simply pushing hair behind her ear, but he knew better. 

In fact, he was even pretty sure he knew who this woman was now. He’d read her file, after all. 

As the tour drew to a close, Ethan waited for the others to disperse before doubling back into the museum. He bobbed and weaved, turning around corners and through side entrances. 

Ethan eventually managed to get behind the woman, watching as she grew more and more flustered before finally ending back up in the room dedicated to Ethan himself. She grumbled something under her breath before putting a finger to her ear.

“Yeah, fuck, I’m sorry, I think I-”

“Looking for someone?” Ethan stepped out from behind a pillar, melting out of the shadow he’d hidden in. 

The woman turned, looking him fully in the face for the first time. She was pretty, with kind, but momentarily frightened eyes. “Uh-”

“I noticed you watching me on the tour.” He cocked his head. “Do we know each other?” Ethan grinned with his movie star touch. “Are you a fan of my work?” 

“What?” The woman narrowed her eyes. “Um, what are you talking about?” 

Ethan took a few steps closer, and the woman backed up. “Mm, no, not my work.” 

She tipped her chin up to try and regain some of her confidence. “I’m sorry sir, I’m just, confused? What are you talking about?”

“Is Mark really using you to tail me?” He watched the woman go slightly pink in the cheeks. “You are a terrible actor, and an even worse tail. I could pick you out the second you approached.” 

“Mark…” her voice wavered. “Who-who’s Mark?” 

Ethan hummed, shaking his head. “Tell him that if he wants to talk, he can come to me directly. He can ask me anything! I’m an open book. But snooping, that’s pretty low.” He raised his voice just slightly. “Mark, you’re going to have to do a lot better than that. I do enjoy a  _ little _ bit of a challenge.” 

Ethan turned, pushing his hands into his pockets as he sauntered out of the room, leaving Agent Nelson speechless, and alone. 


	11. File #111: Lucky Numbers

Amy slammed open the door to the van, making Mark jump as she stormed in. “He is the WORST.”

“He caught you that easily?” Mark pulled his headphones around his neck as Amy threw herself into a chair in the back of the FBI Surveillance van that was currently masquerading as an electrical repair truck. 

“Didn’t you hear?” She asked as she folded her arms across her chest. “So he really is as good as you said he was.” Amy looked up at him. “What the hell do we do? Watch him 24/7?” 

Mark shook his head, “I dunno, I feel like if we do that he’ll just get craftier and it’ll make this whole thing a lot harder than it needs to be. I’ve scrubbed back through the audio a few times, but I don’t think we have anything concrete anyway.” 

She just leaned back in her chair and nodded, her chin pressing into her chest. Amy was looking anywhere but at him, and Mark raised his eyebrows.

“Hey, don’t blame yourself for this rookie, Ethan is slippery. He evaded and found me just as easily as he did with you.” He watched as she rubbed her eyes, nodding. 

“I know, it’s just...not used to failing like this.” 

Mark drew in a breath, nodding his head. He remembered when he used to get like that about cases. If he wasn’t perfect, what was the point? As he’d gotten older, he’d let go of some of those old sentiments, but they still gripped him, even now. 

“Yeah,” he turned around, starting up the truck. “I understand.”

They talked a bit on the way back, but it was about anything but the case. Mark noticed that Amy seemed to relax as soon as the pressure was taken off. She still sulked in her chair, but she was noticeably calmed, baseball cap put on backwards and eyes focused forward. 

When they arrived back at headquarters, a few agents waited for his instructions. After the public had gotten word of a serial thief, he’d been given some more assets to try and get the case wrapped up. As exciting as it was for the public, it was a PR nightmare for the FBI. He’d been in and out of Amherst’s office for the past few weeks constantly. 

Mark paused in front of her door after giving orders to a group of meandering agents to put the MOMA on full FBI watch. He pushed Amherst's door open and peeked his head in. Without looking up, Amherst greeted him.

“Afternoon Agent Fischbach, how can I help you today?” Her voice was as plain and monotone as it could get, and Mark dragged his feet a little as he entered, scratching the back of his head.

“Uh, just reporting back. Agent Nelson’s undercover stint didn’t go as well as planned, but I’m pretty certain that the suspect was casing the museum.” 

Amherst nodded, flicking a pen mark across the paper before lifting her gaze to him. “Well, that’s unfortunate, but...a good break in the case.”

Mark made a sound of agreement. “And don’t take this out too harshly on Agent Nelson, it’s not her fault entirely, our suspect is, well, he’s smart.” 

“That’s taking it lightly,” she replied. “From what I’d last heard, he was a veritable criminal genius.” 

“He’s...something.” Mark snapped back up to attention. “Anyway, that’s all I have to report.” He turned to leave, but heard Amherst clear her throat as he put his hand on the door handle.

“Agent Illhan told me that you left something about the suspect out of your report.” She paused for a moment, and he heard a rustle of paper. “That you and Ethan Nestor were friends when you were young.” 

He drew in the breath he’d been dreading, and turned to face her. “Right. Yes. I was waiting-”

“I told you when you came in here a month ago. You are on thin ice. Hiding shit like this from me? There are people in this place that want your ass, because of what you did  _ and _ because of this new case.” Amherst let out a sharp huff through her nose. “This is a conflict of interest, Fischbach. You know that I’m supposed to take you off of the case when that happens.” 

Mark felt hundreds of different responses shoot through his head at once, but the one he’d practiced until it was burned into his brain took priority. “And I know that, but it’s just...what you said in that meeting. This is my last chance to redeem myself, and I was worried that if I asked for a transfer, I might not get another one.”

Amherst closed her eyes, and sighed again. “Alright, yes. I suppose that makes sense.”

“Every time I’ve met with him, it's been above board. I’ve even been recording the conversations,” he paused for a moment. “Or trying, he’s managed to wipe the data every time. Wiley’s been working with whatever I can bring him.” 

“And there’s no personal contact between you two?”

“His parents and my parents are friends, I only know him because of that.” Mark rubbed the space between his eyebrows. “I hadn’t even seen him since high school.” 

There was a slight twitch in one of Amherst’s eyes, but she closed them and shook her head, looking back towards her paper. “Alright. Thank you Fischbach. You can go.” 

A little shaken, Mark headed down towards the tech room in the basement. As he entered, he was surprised to find general chaos abound. Most of the time, the techies were pretty orderly, but today, they were shouting to one another about something, hurrying through information and glued to computer screens.

Mark waded through the waves of tech geeks to where Wiley sat in the middle of all of it. “Hey dude, what...what the hell is happening down here?” 

Wiley’s gaze snapped up, and he blinked for a second at Mark before registering why he was there. “You, actually.” 

Mark looked taken aback. “Wait, what?” 

“The broken phones and encrypted audio you’ve been bringing us,” Wiley turned his computer screen towards Mark. “It’s some of the best coding I’ve ever seen, I mean, look at this.” 

“Wiley, I can barely remember the password to my email, this just looks like numbers to me.” 

“Ah, well.” He pushed the screen back towards himself. “This...it’s incredibly intuitive and sophisticated. It can delete all traces of itself, but leave behind enough to keep the device alive. With this sort of coding, I’m pretty sure that it’s designed to be impossible to crack by anyone but the creator.” 

A woman in thick glasses towards the back looked up from her computer. “I’ve been telling you for weeks Wiley, this shit  _ has _ to be Graykle. We’ve all read her work, and this is her M.O.” 

“There’s no way!” He replied sharply. “She burns everything she can’t keep on her or under lockdown. I mean, most of the stuff we have was whatever we could get into gel storage before she ran the remote termination codes on them.” Wiley rolled his eyes, looking back to Mark. “So how would a random thief get their hands on it?” 

“Who’s Graykle?” 

Half of the tech staff stopped to stare at him. “You don’t know who  _ Graykle _ is?” A man at the station next to Wiley questioned.

“She worked with the Blackbirds a few years ago, they were an East-Coast based crew who focused on small time robberies and heists. They were arrested a few years back after one of their jobs went bad, and we managed to nab all of them at once.” He flipped through the FBI database, typing something in. “It looks like most of them are still serving time at Kilertz Penitentiary in the Boston area.” 

“Huh,” he lifted his eyebrows. “Anything new from the background check on Nestor?” 

A few more searches from Wiley brought up nothing. “Sorry dude.” 

“S’alright.”  _ The Blackbirds, old heist crew, Ethan had access to the tech _ ... _ maybe _ . “You’ve given me plenty of stuff to work with.” 


	12. File #112: Strange Information

Ethan stood outside of the mute grey building, waiting with a to go cup of coffee in one hand, and his phone in the other. He placed it up next to his ear, “yep, uh huh.” 

He’d fake conversations before, but this one was one that really counted. An agent in a black suit stepped out of a car and headed towards the front entrance, badge out. 

“Thank you so much, and I am so sorry for your loss. Bye now.” He pretended to disconnect the call, and headed in after the agent, grabbing the door as he stepped inside in. 

As the agent in front of him moved through security to the wall of elevators at the other end of the room, Ethan pretended to pat his coat pockets. He then swore softly under his breath for effect, and made a beeline over to the reception desk.

“Excuse me, it seems I’ve forgotten my badge?” 

The receptionist didn’t even look up at him. “What's the name of your supervisor?” 

He remembered seeing a name in the files he’d managed to pull. “Faraday.” 

They nodded and spun around, grabbing a phone from the wall. Ethan reached over and grabbed one of the guest badges that sat in a basket on the counter, and peeled the premade sticker out of his pocket, pasting it neatly on the front. He slipped the badge into his inner jacket pocket, and started up the system on his phone that would interfere with the metallic sensors in the badges. 

Ethan pretended to pat his jacket as his screen illuminated to tell him the job was done. “Oh my god,” he pulled out the newly made badge. “I’m so dumb, it was in here the whole time.” Ethan grinned at the receptionist. “So sorry for the inconvenience!” 

They just swung back around and nodded, returning to whatever they’d been working on. 

He slipped past security with no problems, and followed the path he’d been memorizing through his computer for weeks now.  _ Straight, left, right, double back, move into the bathroom, left, blindspot, down the stairs, into blindspot, straight.  _

And he found himself standing in a wide room filled with computers.

A soft voice he remembered from Mark’s phone caught his attention, “hey there. Can I help you with anything?” 

The boyish face of a twenty something guy who looked like he’d spent his entire life with computers sat at attention behind a desk. Ethan remembered reading his file too,  _ Wiley _ . 

He lifted his phone up, shrugging bashfully. “Just my phone’s been giving me some grief. Can you take a look at it?”

As he set it down on the desk, Wiley began to look over it. “Think it’s been hacked?”

“Maybe, I’ve been working on a case that deals with the darker side of the deep web, and I just want to make sure I haven’t been bugged.” 

Wiley narrowed his eyes as he nodded his head at the device. “I didn’t remember hearing about a deep web case, normally they talk to me about that. Is it new?” 

“Yeah, just started like less than a week ago. I’m a new agent out from the academy, and they wanted to test how the half field half tech training really works out.” 

Wiley laughed, “are they really doing that now?” 

Ethan just nodded with a smile as he tucked a stray bit of hair behind his ear. “The whole case has been so much work, but I bet a smart guy like you would get it done in a snap.” He pretended to pout. “All of the numbers just make my head spin.” 

“Another agent said something similar the other day.” As Wiley pulled a plug from his computer, Ethan slipped his hand into his pocket, ready to press the button to start up the algorithm. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the Smiley case already, nobody can shut up about it anymore.” 

“Yeah, totally.” 

Wiley pushed the cord into the phone and Ethan started the program remotely. The screen flickered slightly as he watched the icon on Wiley’s computer appear, confirming that it had gotten in. 

“The head agent on that case is dealing with some similar problems,” he watched as Wiley went into full tech geek mode, pulling out different codes and breakers. Ethan had copied one of his old friend’s codes, adding his own sloppy touch and editing out some of her safety nets. It would take Wiley a few minutes to remove the bug, but that was more than enough time for his phone to execute the real reason for why he’d come. 

“How so?” Ethan pressed slightly. 

“Well, he’s been coming in with some hacking I’d only ever seen a few years ago.” 

Ethan felt the grip of shock shake him slightly. “Some tough stuff?” 

“Yeah, whoever this is, they’ve been using backdoors, heavy cyphers, and execute commands, if you even know what any of that means.”

“A little.” 

“We don’t really know yet though, still working out the kinks.” He shrugged slightly. “Haven’t even broken the code halfway yet. I mean, somebody suggested it might be Graykle, but that’d be stupid, because everyone knows how protective she was of her code.”

Ethan drew in another breath. So they did have suspicions. Luckily this man was too narrow to wonder if it had been her. Which it was. 

They’d been close, back when he’d still been on the crew. He would keep her company while she coded, even though he’d never been allowed to even look at the reflection on her glasses while she worked. Graykle was secretive, paranoid, and stubborn. But those were the traits you wanted in a world class hacker. 

He’d gotten most of the stuff she hadn’t burned when she was arrested, but the FBI had still managed to get their hands on some. Ethan was lucky that her coding was good enough to hide itself in plain sight. 

“Anyway,” Wiley cleaned up the broken code in his phone. He tapped his knuckles under a certain line. “Must’ve been hacked by some punk on a dark web site, only newbie idiots sign their work so clearly.”

Ethan had thrown one of his old adversaries under the bus. A hacker called Skullver who worked out of the East Bank. 

He just smiled, “thanks, I’ll have that looked into.” 

Wiley handed him back his phone. “Glad to just have something easy to do for once.” 

Ethan left him with a nod and headed back upstairs to the bullpen. 

They knew about the Blackbirds. That much was clear. If Wiley knew, then there was a good chance Mark would too. He’d have to be a little more careful now, shaking tails at this point in the game would get hard.

Ethan turned his head away from a camera as he passed, moving in the meandering path that would keep him out of the eye of the FBI. 

He found Mark’s desk after a bit of searching. It was sparse, like he’d assumed, with only a photo of a dog to show any sort of personality. He’d only assumed it was Mark’s because the desk across from his had been inhabited by Agent Nelson when he’d arrived.

Ethan waited for her to leave before approaching, pulling out the pin he’d bought from a street vendor out of his pocket. As he passed, he set it down onto the surface, before gliding by like he’d done nothing at all. 

Four minutes and he was home free. He’d barely breathed for the last hour. 

Ethan took the next route back.  _ Left, up the stairs, back, around, right, down...shit. _

He pushed himself up into the corner of a wall as he heard Mark and Agent Nelson’s voices behind him. Ethan pulled out his phone and lowered his head, opening a random app and pretending to check it. 

He didn’t lift his head as they passed, but they didn’t seem to notice him any way. 

Ethan watched them go, before pulling himself out from against the wall, and jogging the rest of the way. 

He was getting sloppy. He should’ve known their routines through and through by now. 

If he wasn’t careful, he might get caught a lot earlier than he intended.

And there was still so much left to do. 


	13. File #113: Dead Ends

Mark hadn’t slept, instead electing to stay up and work on the case that had been driving him insane. All of this didn’t even make sense at some point. Especially with that last robbery. 

Technically, it was impossible. No way Ethan could’ve gotten in and out in the time he did, especially because he had time to replace all of the paintings with fakes, and get all of the real ones out without raising alarm. 

Even if he did factor in that Ethan could’ve vandalized them beforehand, or even used something special to get the paintings out of there, the time frame still didn’t make sense.

Mark was beginning to wonder if Ethan was even human.

He’d spent about half the night on a bad lead, and was now scrolling through the Bureau’s files on the Blackbirds. Wiley had mentioned them in passing, something about Graykle, who was apparently a suspect behind the devices being used at each crime scene in the Smiley case. 

The Blackbirds were a team of five, a hacker, an acrobat, a face, a bruiser, and the mastermind. 

Graykle, better known as Kelly Gray, was an insane high level hacker than the Feds had spent years trying to catch. If it wasn’t for a small mistake in her code, they would’ve never found the van she was camped out in outside that last fateful job. 

Mike Feller was the acrobat, good at getting in and out of places. As Mark scanned his page, he found little information compared to the rest of the members. It appeared that in this last job, Feller had gotten sloppy, messed something up, kept them from escaping entirely. 

The face was a name Mark recognized, Liza Wu, who he’d known used to work grifts on high profile businessmen. Before her arrest, he calculated that she’d stolen millions. 

Omar Blakley was ex-army, and said in his confessions that he'd been hired by the mastermind after his army pensions fell through.

The final member was the mastermind, who, according to the files, had yet to spill anything about his operations. After about seven years in prison, Buddy Connery had kept his mouth shut. Similar to Graykle, there was very little information about him anywhere. He’d appeared on the radar a few years ago when the heists started, and then disappeared into the fray when he’d been arrested. 

Even after taking his mind off of the Smiley stuff, it still permeated in the back of Mark’s mind.

This shit was gonna drive him insane. 

Despite his thorough combing of the files, there was no mention of Ethan whatsoever. He cross referenced times and dates, and even looked through Ethan’s old parking tickets. There appeared to be no connection whatsoever. 

His wake-up alarm reminded him that he’d gotten no sleep last night, and that he’d been shaky all day from whatever over caffeinated drink he’d have to drink to keep him awake. He didn’t even bother to check his notifications or change his clothes as he pulled on his jacket and belt and headed out the door. 

Mark bought coffee from the cart outside the bureau headquarters, blinking away the morning light that seared his tired eyes. The cart clerk had his eyes glued to his phone, and Mark furrowed his eyebrows as he tossed the man some money before being handed his coffee wordlessly. People were weird these days.

He headed inside, and was immediately met with Amy pacing the front entrance with her phone held up to her ear.

She caught sight of him and stormed over, ending the call she was having. “Why the hell haven’t you been answering my calls?” 

“What?” Mark pulled his phone from his pocket to see the missed messages from her buried underneath spam emails. “Oh shit, sorry, I had my phone on silent. I was uh, working the case.”

“Apparently not well enough,” she grabbed his arm and began dragging him down the hallway towards the bullpen. “Did you read the news?” 

“Uh, no, didn’t have time.” They passed someone else with their head turned down towards their phone. “What happened?” 

“Well, let’s just say that we were really wrong about thinking that Ethan was casing the MOMA.” 

“What?” The made it into the open area of the bullpen, where a live news bulletin was scrolling large block text across the screen. 

**WEST 38TH GALLERY ROBBED. SMILEY THIEF STILL AT LARGE.**

“Shit.” 

The West 38th Gallery was a popular hipster art space that had blown up in the past year. All types of famous alt artists had their works showing there, including an imported Banksys. Amy had forced him to read up on all of the local art galleries that held expensive work after the third time he’d told her he hadn’t bothered.

The next several hours were spent calling different galleries to up their security tenfold, and getting lectured by Amy with the importance of an FBI Agent keeping his phone on. 

“Your idiocy is unparalleled.” 

He was mostly aware of that. 

After a while of pacing on the phone like Amy had been when he’d first seen her this morning, he went to grab a pen from his desk. Normally he was used to putting his stuff down immediately after arriving, but with all of the craziness, he hadn’t had time.

And that was when he’d seen it. 

A tiny little smiley faced pin sat upright on his desk. Grinning x-ed out eyes and everything. Mark picked it up, turning it towards Amy.

“Did you do this to make fun of me?”

Amy furrowed her eyebrows. “...no.” she stepped closer, taking it from him. “Where did you get this?”

“It was just sitting on my desk.”

“It wasn’t here when I got here this morning.” 

The two of them made eye contact. “Do you think-”

“Wouldn’t hurt to check.” 

They both speed walked downstairs to the security booth, and barely had to demand anything until they were given access to the security footage. The two of them scrolled through the footage from that morning, until they watched a short figure stride through the bullpen. Their hand flicked out, and they placed the pin on the table. 

“Got him.” It would’ve been difficult for anyone who didn’t know him, but Mark recognized the back of his old friend’s head easily. 

It should’ve been there when he scrubbed back, but the footage of Ethan entering was gone, as was it of him missing. It simply turned into static the second he arrived on screen. 

“Holy shit,” Amy murmured. “How the hell did he do that?”

“I don’t know,” Mark watched the video of Ethan walking through the bullpen. “But he obviously wanted me to see this part.”

He watched how Ethan’s other hand moved, the way his jacket swung to cover the motion. The pin was just a distraction.

Mark rushed back from the room to the bullpen, and began rummaging through his drawers. He pulled open the top left drawer, which had been hidden from the camera by Ethan’s jacket.

From it, he removed a small piece of paper. It wasn’t exactly a piece of paper, it was thicker, with gaudy black lettering.

**_The New York Opera Presents: The Marriage of Figaro_. **

The date was for tomorrow night, 6pm. He flipped it over, and found Ethan’s handwriting on the back. 

_Join me? Dress nice._

Well. Fuck.


	14. File #114: On the Balcony

Ethan held the black umbrella above his head as a light rain drizzled from above, trudging towards the soft golden light that pooled out of the New York Opera house. His boots, the ones with the slight heel, clicked against the sidewalk as he filtered into the crowd of people, closing his umbrella and ducking his head as he entered. 

The sounds of clinking glassware and the voices of upper middle class retirees out for a Thursday evening show were foreign enough to somehow feel comforting. 

He gave his black wool coat and umbrella to the coat check, smoothing his hands down the front of his grey cable knit sweater, and pushing his hands into the pockets of honey colored corduroy pants he hadn’t worn in a few years. 

Ethan headed over to the bar, considering buying two drinks, but knowing that there was a chance that Mark wouldn’t have even found the ticket in the first place. 

And an even better chance that he wouldn’t show up at all.

Ethan liked to think that he still knew Mark, even after all this time. The man was smart, and if anything, he was curious. So, h e grabbed a flute of what looked like champagne, and headed towards his seat. 

He’d been here, a long, long time ago, in what felt like another life. Ethan could remember running his hands along the plush velvet interior of the opera house trimming, and, as if out of a dream, he could imagine the dancing figures on stage through the dreamy eyes of childhood. 

The theater smelled in that way all good old theaters do, rich wood, deep notes of the perfume and cologne just barely brushing the air. He was brought home immediately, back to the kid he’d been in high school, that old fluttering of boyish excitement in his stomach.

Ethan nestled into his seat, taking in a deep breath as he surveyed the people around him. He’d gotten tickets on the second alcove, where a little two seater was tucked away in the corner. It wasn’t the best seat in the house, those often cost a mint, but it was cozy and still afforded a good view of the stage. 

He set his drink onto the ledge that jutted out from the balcony wall, and let himself relax for what felt like the first time in forever. 

Ethan checked his phone one last time, 5:56, before turning it on silent. He should’ve known that Mark would’ve been smart enough not to show up to this sort of thing. Ethan was probably his number one suspect after all and-

“This seat taken?” 

He lifted his head to see the very man he had fretted over for so long standing in front of him, an Old-Fashioned in hand. 

Mark wore a pair of deep red slacks over shiny shoes, ones that actually managed to fit him nicely. On top, he wore a blazer that matched his pants, along with a black turtleneck. The whole ensemble, he noted, complimented all of Mark's  assets quite nicely.

Ethan settled into the suave voice he’d learned to take on. “How long have you been rehearsing that?”

Mark lifted his eyebrows sincerely. “Longer than I’d liked to have.” He took the seat next to Ethan, fidgeting slightly as he got comfortable. 

“Out of all of the things I expected tonight, you looking like...this...was not one of them.” Ethan laughed as he reached for his champagne. “I mean, your work suits are mostly a disaster.”

“Hey!” Mark looked taken aback. “Out of all the things  _ I _ expected, getting made fun of immediately wasn’t one of them.” 

“No, no.” Ethan waved his hand. “You look good. Really good.” He brought the flute to his lips. “Red is your color. You should really wear it more often.” 

The two settled in for a mostly uneventful evening performance. Ethan was beginning to zone out during a particularly long scene, and he began to design a possible heist sequence to steal the clothing right off of the actors. 

He wondered to himself how much the wigs alone would sell for. It was the New York Opera after all, he could probably get a theater obsessed critic to buy them for enough cash that Ethan could probably buy the Opera house itself if he wanted to.

During intermission, Mark offered to buy them something from the little cafe, but Ethan waved it away.

“Everything here is too expensive for how bad it ends up being.” He grinned in a way that made Mark raise an eyebrow at him. “I’ll take you somewhere after that’ll blow your mind.” 

“After?”

He nodded. “After.” As the two headed back inside he tipped his head slightly to the side. “I didn’t offer you _dinner_ and a show, so we shouldn’t say no to dessert.”

“Is that a euphemism?” Ethan watched as Mark dipped his head through flustered words.

“When isn’t it,” he winked.

The last act was good, and Ethan found himself on his feet as it ended, clapping excitedly as each actor took a bow. He dragged Mark outside before waving down a cab and pushing the man into it, climbing in after. 

They drove for a while before arriving in the heart of the city, and Ethan pulled them towards a medium sized highrise. He made quick conversation with the bouncer at the entrance before the two of them were waved in past a short line of well dressed millennials. 

“What did you say to that guy?” Mark asked incredulously as the two of them stepped onto an elevator. 

Ethan leaned forward to click the button for the top floor. “Oh, y’know. Enough.”

In reality, he’d reminded the guy of the favor he’d done a few months back. Some evidence had been caught up in a case that involved the very bar they were heading up to now. Ethan had vetted it, the bar was clean, but the ties going back to it meant that it would probably get shut down by the local cops. 

And the last thing Ethan wanted was the bar that had given him the most success  _ ever _ on dates to go out of business.

Not that this was a date.

As the two of them stepped out of the elevator, Mark’s eyes went wide as he took it all in. They stood under a small overhanging that sat above the elevator entrance to protect it from rain, and the rooftop bar ahead of them was buzzing with people. Neon lights lit up patrons in bright pinks, purples, and blues, their skin glowing under the dazzling light.

“You go wait for me over by the balcony over there,” Ethan gestured with his chin towards the glass barrier than let people look over the whole city. “I’ll get us something to drink.”

He slipped between bar goers as he leaned up against the bar. Ethan didn’t recognize the guy working, some new dude with purple hair, but asked for whatever was best that night, and got back two drinks that looked like they’d been mixed with fairy dust. 

Ethan gave the guy a wink as he slipped him some money across the bar, and headed back over the Mark.

It was quieter where the canopy of the overhang didn’t trap in all the voices and make them echo terribly off of one another. A breeze whipped across the rooftop, and Ethan breathed it in, closing his eyes and flicking them behind his eyelids, taking in the muddled light and sound and smell of the city.

The sudden pause, the moment of respite, it was nice for once. To take a break. Even if that break was with the man that was currently hunting him for enough life sentences to let him die in prison ten times over. 

The fact that Mark had even come here in the first place still surprised him.

“I’m glad you came,” he finally says, raising his voice slightly over the din. “Even with...everything.”

“Of course.” Mark stared down into his drink, his expression more confused at the drink than what Ethan had said. “You’re my friend.” 

“Mmm.” He murmured.

Mark lifted his head to look at Ethan. “Right? Aren’t we friends?” 

For the first time in a long time, Ethan felt like being honest. “I don’t know what we are.” 

Mark made a rumbly noise of reply in the back of his throat.

Ethan took a sip of the drink. It was both sour and sweet at the same time, but strangely alluring.  It wasn’t a bad combination, but it wasn’t good either. 

He felt horribly gauche thinking that it was kind of like the two of them.

"I honestly don't know why I did it."

"Did what?"

Ethan gestured with his drink. "Invite you out!" He laughed under his breath. "I didn't even know if you'd even like opera. But hey. You're here. I guess." 

Mark raised an eyebrow at the comment, but didn't push it any father.

For a while, they talked about the show, and the different songs, about the weather and dumb shit, and the drink Ethan was holding onto so tightly he thought it might burst. 

But somehow, Mark didn't make small talk as dreadfully painful as Ethan had always found it. He always added some little thing that made Ethan stay interested in the conversation. And he didn't know if it was a superpower, or a fucking jedi mind curse.

After a while, their stories and comments move to better times. When they were still kids, and shit was a little easier. When the silence cleaved in between them wasn't as painful to think about. Hell, Mark had never even apologized for-

“It really is like old times.” Mark’s laugh was musical as it echoed over the wind. “Makes me miss it.” 

They'd been talking high school, back when Mark was doubling football and wrestling and making basically everyone melt at his feet for just being his idiot overly charismatic self. 

“I don’t,” Ethan mumbled. “I’m sure you don’t remember, you  _ were _ a perfect little golden boy back then, but high school was kinda shitty for me.” 

“Yeah,” Mark went suddenly stoney. “Fuck, right.”

Ethan gripped his drink a bit tighter. _Fuck_ he didn't want to get into this now. But he was a little drunk, and boy was that anger still curling in his gut, even after all these years. “And it _was_ kinda your fault.”

“Well, uh, um.” The words spill out of Mark all at once, like he can’t get them off his tongue fast enough. “I didn’t know what I was doing, I thought…” Ethan lifted his head to see Mark scratch the back of his neck.  He watched as the agent ran a nervous hand through his hair. “I was a fucking asshole. After what those fuckers dared us to...I shouldn’t have shut you out like that.” Mark closed his eyes, and let out a breath. “And for what; a reputation that doesn’t even matter now?” 

Ethan chuckled under his breath. “As much as it was a stupid dare when we were kids,  _ you _ kissed  _ me _ .” 

Mark looked taken aback, but not in an unfriendly way, more surprised than anything. His voice was a few octaves higher than before. “Cause they dared us to! What the hell was I supposed to do, back down?” 

Ethan rolled his eyes good naturedly. “You and your massive goddamn ego. Gotta prove everything to everyone.” He finally found Mark’s eyes through the weight of the conversation. “And hey, if anything, you made me realize some shit about myself.” Ethan bit his lip, his grip a little tighter on the glass as he brought it up. “Most of those rumors your friends spread were true by the end anyway.” 

“Ethan, I-” His eyebrows lifted in slight surprise. "I was an asshole." When Mark looked away, Ethan knew what he was going to say. Knew what he'd been saying forever. "And like, I'm straight and all, and it was just-"

Ethan nearly lost it laughing, eyes blown wide as he turned towards Mark. “You seriously...really?” He moved back to gazing at the street below. “Huh.” 

"What?" There was a tremor in Mark's voice somewhere between annoyance and fear.

"It's been..." Ethan closed his eyes, counting out loud. "Eight years. And you're still going to ignore what happened." 

Mark's silence said more than the expression on his face needed to.

Ethan  turned suddenly, with a ferocity he hadn’t had in a long time. “Y’know, I worshipped you, even with all of the shit your friends put me through. You were like a god to me. And after your graduation...”

“I never meant that to happen,” Mark nearly cut him off. “I never should’ve let Tyler convince me to drink, I never should’ve given you that beer.”

“We  _ fucked _ , legit  _ hooked up _ in your bedroom, and you’ve just pretended that it never happened. That anything between us, was some dumb 'dare' that happened in middle school. You pretend that you didn’t screw me against-”

“Ethan-”

“And you still say you’re-”

“Ethan!” Mark’s face was cloudy. There was a certain look in his eyes, not quite fear and not quite hurt. Maybe shame. It looked somewhat more like shame. Ethan knew it well. 

"I was scared, okay?" His voice was deep, but empty. “I am scared. I didn’t know what I meant. I was just…” Mark looked like he wanted to heave himself over the side of the balcony. “I never meant to hurt you like that. I’m sorry, I really...We drank so much I just...lost myself?”

“Yeah,” Ethan took a large drink from his class. “Right.” He moved to walk away, but Mark caught his shoulder.

“I should’ve called you. I was fucking stupid. I should’ve seen that it was more than sex for you, more than need.” 

“Need?” 

“I...uh.” He closed his eyes. “It was just like, a physical thing for me.” 

“Okay. Whatever.” Ethan really just wanted to escape, run for the exit. He never should’ve gone this far with the conversation, he should’ve just left it at flirting dangerously close to the line. Now they were here and it felt like his heart was close to toppling out of his chest, if it wasn’t already on the floor. 

“I still don’t understand most of this. Most of myself.” Mark said suddenly, his eyes moving like he hadn’t even thought over what he’d just said. “I hadn’t thought...it felt shameful for some reason. Like something I’d let  _ them _ do to you for years was true all along about me.” His next words tumbled over the previous. “I don’t even know. I shouldn’t even be here.” 

But he didn’t move away. He stood, waiting, eyes seeming to search Ethan’s. 

“I just hope that you understand that I’m so fucking sorry it’s not even funny.” 

Ethan huffed out a breath, and leaned back into the balcony. He closed his eyes and let his shoulders relax, even if it was just for a moment. 

“I miss when we were little kids, when everything was still easy, and there wasn’t so much…” He gestured with his hands without much direction, as if making motion to everything around them. “When we could fucking  _ breathe _ .”

The two stood there together in silence for enough time to pass that Ethan began to steal glances at Mark, trying to figure out what he was thinking. 

“The thief." Mark murmured softly, gently changing the conversation. "They seem like they know stuff. If they turned themself in, I bet I could work a deal with the Director, make them a consultant or something.”

“I’m sure the Smiley would hate a desk job.” Ethan whispered, the tone of his suave persona worming itself back into his words. 

“Maybe not with me." And then he added a little quieter. "Maybe not if I could stay this time.” 

Ethan flushed at that, trying to get the color in cheeks to leave as Mark turned towards him. Without thinking, as if Mark were just another hookup, he said, “my apartment’s not far from here.” 

“Good to know,” Mark murmured. “But I think it’s best if you don’t try to break into my phone again.” 

Gently, Mark lifted a hand to Ethan’s face, cupping his cheek as much as he’d let him.  For a second, Ethan thought Mark might kiss him, but instead the man pressed his lips to the nape of Ethan’s forehead.  Ethan closed his eyes as it happened, leaning into the feeling of being held so tenderly for what felt like the first time. 

When Mark left him alone on the balcony, Ethan was more confused about the man than he’d ever been before. 

He couldn’t help but feel like the tables were beginning to turn.

And wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the brief interlude! i've been on vacation for the last week, and your sweet messages got me right back into the swing of things when i got back!


	15. File #115: Revelations

Mark was beginning to seriously worry about his sleep schedule. 

He spent the evening after returning from his night out with Ethan pacing his living room in the dark in only his boxers and a t-shirt, his skin almost too feverish to let him stay still. 

Everything felt like it had come crashing down in one small conversation. Sure, he’d gotten used to people asking him stuff like that, this was New York after all, not quite as straight and closeted as his hometown, but coming from  _ him _ , someone who knew him like  _ that... _ it was different.  It’d shaken him immensely. 

He’d joked about it before, thought himself to be comfortable in his sexuality. Even when Amy asked, he took it like he had whenever someone kindly bought him a drink at the gay bar he used to frequent down the street. It was something he could brush off, something he could easily say, 'oh, not for me thanks,' to. 

He considered himself straight, but cool with it. 

And then fucking Nestor had to come back into his life. 

Mark wasn't angry that Ethan had brought it up. He had every right to do so. Mark had been an asshole, using him and then leaving without so much as a goodbye. Even in that morning after, the part of him that was still drunk on beer and whiskey and the whipped up frenzy of the night, dug deep into the feelings of where he was. For once in his life he rested comfortably without shame or fear.

And then realization kicked in, and he'd silently put his clothes back on, and disappeared into the morning air. 

The rational part of him, the one that kept telling him over and over again that leaving Ethan was wrong, was satisfied that they finally spoke about what happened. At least the nagging in the back of his mind would finally end. He could no longer feel sorry for himself, just ashamed that it hadn't happened sooner.

But there still existed that angry, fearful part of him that still carried the words of his friends. That Ethan was wrong for expression an attraction they didn't understand. That he was wrong, by default, despite the fact that he made sure those friends would never know what they'd done.

_ Freak, loser _ ...those were there tamest. There were other things said that he couldn't even force himself to repeat. His friends had thrown slurs and insults, angry, charged lies about a boy that used to be his friend. Someone he loved. Though he still couldn't cope with whether it was simply platonic...or if he'd loved Ethan like _that_ , truely, deeply. With a word he couldn't quite get himself to say yet. 

If anything. It didn't matter now. He hadn't done what was right when it had mattered. Mark hadn't done anything at all, he'd just stood by while Ethan was torn to shreds.

He'd been silent.

Mark stepped out onto his balcony, gripping the stone barrier between him and the open air. It was cool against his skin, and he closed his eyes as the wind drew itself against his face.

What the hell was he even  _ thinking _ going _there_ with _him_? 

Was it the part of him that was still very much a detective, still very much the inquisitive agent he was supposed to be, or was it the part of him from that night back in the summer after his senior graduation, who finally let himself hold a boy in his arms that he’d ignored in fear for years.

Mark stepped into the bullpen to find Amy already lounging on her desk chair. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d been here for an hour or so already. She was barely a fully fledged agent, and she was already working herself to death. 

As he slid his things onto the back of his chair, he set a cup of coffee down in front of her, and tossed a heavily wrapped breakfast sandwich in her direction. She caught it easily, giving him a wink as she continued whatever conversion she was having on the phone. 

He’d lost a bet yesterday, (if could she steal one of Wiley’s minifigures off his desk without him realizing), and had ended up owing her breakfast when she plunked it down on his desk a few minutes later. Wiley still hadn’t seemed to realize, and Mark raised an eyebrow at the tiny Sonic that was currently winking at him, finger extended in a point. 

Mark unwrapped his own sandwich while logging back into his email. 

“So,” Amy set the phone down. “How was it?” 

He probably shouldn’t have told her about the opera. Mark honestly shouldn’t have even gone. 

“Eh, it was good." He swallowed a bite of sandwich. "To catch up with him.” 

Amy raised an eyebrow, “y’know, for an agent, you’re a terrible liar.” 

“Aren’t I  _ supposed _ to be, a bad liar?” 

She shrugged, but leaned forward, her hands underneath her chin. “Tell me everything.” 

Mark rolled his eyes and sighed. “We went to go see the show, and it was good, and then we went to go get drinks, and it was, like, okay-”

“You got  _ drinks _ ?” Amy opened her mouth in mock shock. “ _ Scandalous _ .” 

“It  _ is _ scandalous, if anyone found out, especially the Director - she already wants my ass for even having a connection to Ethan in the first place - then my whole career would be toast. I was literally going out on the town with a potential suspect.” 

“Definite suspect.” 

“Maybe.” Mark put a finger out, and Amy raised her eyebrow again. "I think this is bigger than we anticipated."

“Okay, you were the one who was so in favor that it was him, and now you think it’s something  _ else _ ?” She shook her head. “Oh, you’ve got it bad, hm?” Amy paused. “Or maybe, you used to have it bad, I still can’t tell.”

“Have what bad?” Mark went red like he didn’t understand what she was talking about. “I just think that, well...I’ve uh, done some research into the Blackbirds.” 

“Oh yeah, that old heist crew.”

Mark shook his head incredulously. “How do you know everything about… _ everything _ ?” 

Amy grinned, pushing her fingertips into her cheeks. “I’m special.”

“You’re terrible.” He waved a hand. “Wiley mentioned them, that their hacking looked similar to whatever Ethan’s been using. Using the technology of someone called Grayckle or something.” 

Amy nodded along, seemingly already knowing everything he was saying. “So you think there’s some sort of connection there? Like maybe she was an ex-girlfriend or something?” 

“Here’s the thing,” Mark tapped his finger on the desk. “I think we need to look back through the record of Mike Feller.”

“Uh,” Amy closed her eyes. “Acrobat, right? Why?”

“Hunch, just a weird sudden feeling.” Something seemed to click into place suddenly, talking this through with Amy. “Yeah, there was something weird about that last job. The acrobat in question never made mistakes like Feller did in that last job, they always seemed to be secured, fine, and on time. Everything Feller did was off.” 

“So you’re thinking that-”

“Ethan’s was the original acrobat, and something happened that they needed a replacement, and the replacement wasn’t good enough, and tanked them all.”

She took a bite of her sandwich. “Then why pop back up now?” 

Mark paused, his eyes straying to the smiley face pin sitting on his desk. “Wait.” He lunged forward at his computer. “Shit.” 

“What?” Amy set her food down on the desk and circled the desk to join them. “Woah. Damn.” 

“That’s it,” he tapped the computer screen. 

The crew was due to get out onto parole in a few weeks. Meaning that-

“He’s been waiting for them to get out of jail, preparing the world for their newest heists. Proving that he won’t abandon them this time.” Mark leaned back in his chair. “Jesus.” 

“Uh, Agents? Nelson, Fischbach?” Both of them turned to see a lanky intern staring at them, nearly shaking with nerves.

“Yeah?” Amy held herself a little straighter. Her voice darkened. “What happened.” 

“We just got a ping from the people watching, uh, Ethan Nestor?” 

Mark stood in a flash. “Where is he?” 

The intern looked like he might collapse if either of them lifted their voices another decibel. “They just clocked him heading to uh, Boston.” 

Mark turned to Amy, who was already scrolling through the files on the Blackbirds. “Are they-”

“Yeah, the leader, Connery, he’s at the prison there.” 

Mark sucked in a breath. “Guess we’re heading to Boston.” 


	16. File #116: Rights and Wrongs and Past Decisions

Ethan hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him.

_ Fuck _ . It wasn’t supposed to go like that.  _ He _ was supposed to stay on top of all of this, and now he felt more and more like he wasn’t seeing as straight through Mark as he’d assumed he had. 

What did he know? The fact that Mark still hadn’t connected him to the Blackbirds yet made Ethan feel a little better, at least he had the leg up there. But his paranoia was setting in...or maybe Ethan was just...after that night at the opera, things had been…

Well, old feelings were making themselves present. 

Ethan wanted to flick himself over and over again in the forehead, just trying to knock some sense back into himself.  _ Just because he apologized for everything now doesn’t mean he’s changed. The fact that it took him  _ this _ long should make it clear that he’s not worth it.  _

He closed his eyes underneath his sunglasses, letting out a deep, chest rattling sigh, and shoved the straw of his iced coffee into his mouth as he waited for the subway to arrive. 

Ethan turned his head slightly, noting the two agents he’d seen tailing him for a week or so now. The two of them stared down at their phones, pretending to not look up at him in patterned intervals. 

If he wanted, he could easily drop them with some easy switchbacks through the tunnels, but honestly? He almost wanted Mark to know where he was going. 

It was fun to drop little hints, enrich the chase in some way. 

Maybe he just liked the adrenaline rush of nearly getting caught. 

The train rushed into the tunnel, and Ethan stepped on, grabbing an open seat as he watched the agents get into the car a little further down. They stood with their hands grasping the poles at the doorway, an easy exit if they needed it. 

Even undercover, their training showed through. It was why Ethan always found it too easy to spot them. They could never fully drop what they’d been taught. 

The easiest thing to catch was the shoes. All Feebs wore these stupid black shiny shoes, and the ones who hadn’t gone much undercover weren’t smart enough to switch them out for sneakers. 

The harder ones needed some watching, you had to be aware to find those types, but looking for ticks and tricks was easy for someone like him. When you study body language and mimicry for a living, it doesn’t get hard. 

These specific agents had taken him maybe a day to clock, and they’d been on him for about a week now. He honestly didn’t mind pretending he didn’t see them. 

Exposing them suddenly was a good cover for when he needed a few hours to disappear.

It wasn’t difficult to get them to go away, and it was beyond easy to drop them if he wanted. But again, Fischbach should know that he’s in Boston. If Mark realized that he  _ wasn’t  _ there to steal something, it might jog his mind for once. And if he didn’t figure it out, maybe that whip smart partner of his will. 

Ethan watched as the city rushed away, and they headed out into the suburbs of greater New York. With a slight smile, Ethan noted that the agents were currently frantically typing on their respective devices. No doubt telling their superiors that something was up with their mark. 

He leaned back, listening to the sounds of the train as it hummed along the rails. He’d need to change trains in an hour or so, and he  _ really _ wanted to see the agents get their panties in a twist then. 

Boston would come soon. And he went over the information in his head over and over again. Connery would want to know everything. 

The last time he’d seen all of them was when he told them about having to drop out of the next job.  _ That _ job. It was short notice, and Connery had been mad, but...he understood when Ethan told him that his...someone close to him had just died.

Ethan had been at a funeral upstate when his phone began to explode with notifications. News articles, texts, Graykle using her one phone call to tell him to destroy  _ everything _ , and Connery using his to tell Ethan to distance himself from the crew. Instructing him to lay low and wait for contact.

He’d watched the trial online, wishing he could be sitting in the room with them, and feeling very, very alone for the first time in a long time. 

Ethan was surprised that the guy they hired to stand in for him had managed to stay alive at all. Connery had sounded like if he got anywhere close to him, he’d rip out the guy’s throat with his teeth. 

It’d been two years before he received the first message. Graykle had managed to do what she did best, and began contacting him through spam emails. It was through them that he found her stash of half built electronics and massive system of codexes and insta-hacks, buried exactly seven feet underground in her parent’s backyard. 

Ethan was terrified of messing with her shit, she was the type to snap off your hand if you messed with it, but in times like these, even she was that desperate. 

And the idea of letting Connery down...he couldn’t do that, not again. 

Because he hadn’t been there, he’d gotten them all put away, and he owed it to them to fix this, to get them back on track.

He stood as the train announced his transfer destination, and moved to the door to wait. Ethan drummed his fingers against his thigh, nodding his head as he turned it to see one of the agents nudge the other. He grinned to himself, stepping out into the sunlight as the train huffed to a stop. 

Ethan found a shaded bench, and took a seat to wait the maybe thirty minutes it would take for his train to arrive. 

It was only him and the agents alone on the platform, and he noted as they went over to the kiosk to pay for tickets.

He almost felt bad for making them follow him all this way. 

“Hey,” he raised his voice to get their attention. 

One of the agents turned towards him, clearly unsure what the protocol of their mark trying to get their attention was. Their expressions were halfway through the stages of panic.

“I feel like the two of you know me pretty well by now. Sure Fischbach’s got a file a mile long.” He watched both agents bristle and the one that had acknowledged him turned fully in his direction. “Uh, what? What are you talking about?”

“You’re FBI Agents,” Ethan sighed. “I know you work for Fischbach, and I know you’ve been tailing me for about a week.” 

“I don’t know what sorts of drugs you’re on sir-”

“I just don’t want you to waste your time.” He nodded towards the tracks. “I’ll give you this one for free, you can tell Fischbach. I want you to tell him!”

The agents didn’t seem to realize how easily they’d broken cover. The second he’d verbally clocked them, both of them had relaxed. 

Ethan smiled, “I’m taking a little trip to Boston.” He added a small wink, “some me time.” 

The two of them pretended to be confused, and Ethan just grinned even wider. 

He watched one of them make a phone call, and in a few minutes, both had taken the train back to New York. 

He waited about fifteen more minutes for his bus to arrive, and climbed into the mostly empty interior. Ethan put in a pair of headphones, showed his ticket to the driver, and got comfortable in his seat. 

He took a short nap on the way, he hadn’t slept much the past few nights, and felt himself drift off into sleep. 

Ethan dreamed of an endless field filled with flowers. He walked the length of it, until he reached the edge of a forest. Inside, he could see familiar shadows flit between the trees. 

Behind him, a voice spoke. A man in an off white linen suit stood ten feet from him. He had dark hair and kind brown eyes, and though he looked nothing like Mark, Ethan knew that it was him. In that weird dream-like sense, he knew it. 

“Stop!” Mark reached out to him. “Wait. Please.”

“Yes?” Ethan’s voice wasn’t entirely his, but bubbly, and not quite real.

“Do you remember?”

Ethan didn’t think he did. Or he didn’t answer. Could’ve been either, honestly. 

The figure that was Mark smiled. “I meant it all.” 

The space on Ethan’s forehead grew warm, and though he didn’t see it, he felt it, the kiss placed there. 

And then.

“The whole time. I loved you.” 

Ethan stirred from sleep as the driver stood up to announce the end of the route. He blinked sleep out of his eyes as he clambered to gather his things up and stumble off the bus half asleep. 

Fucking dreams. 

It was beginning to dissipate already as he walked towards where his phone’s map was telling him the train station would be. He could see the not-quite-Mark’s face beginning to fade it as mouthed the last three words. 

Ethan rubbed his face as he climbed the stairs up to the platform. 

No use dwelling on what he could never have anyway. 

He remembered the kid he was back then. Young and hopeful and so ignorant to how the world around him worked. 

The train to Boston arrived, and Ethan slumped into a seat alone at the back of the train in an empty car. 

When he came to New York, he was hopeful. A college kid. For the first time, he was completely on his own, and that’s how he’d wanted it, at the moment. 

And then, inevitably, it had all come crashing down. Bills and worry and student loans crushed him like a bug under a boot. He’d barely been hanging on, considering almost any option, when he’d been hired at a local gymnastics gym to teach classes. 

The pay had been okay, and muscles he hadn’t worked in years ached all the time, but it was enough to keep him going. 

And it was in the middle of practicing a routine to teach to his students that he was approached by a man in black. 

He wore a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with a blazer over it, unassuming, middle-class appearing, Ethan realized later. The man introduced himself to Ethan as Buddy Connery, an emphasis on the Connery. He offered a ‘similar position’ with paid training, a share of the company, and a  _ much _ higher payout. 

The only catch? Not entirely legal. 

He’d assumed at first, an underground strip club or something, but after some explanation, Ethan had signed to join in less than three hours.

He joined the Blackbirds as their final member, and spent months training with Graykle and Omar on how to work as a cohesive unit. 

Good times. 

Ethan felt the train come to a stop finally, and he saw the familiar flash of his final stop.

He stretched himself up from his chair and ascended the steps up to the street above. Boston Common spread before him, and he breathed in the city around him. Cinnamon nuts, the subway grates that steamed in the morning chill, kids and their parents feeding the ducks. 

He wished that he could’ve come back here in different circumstances. 

But he had work to do. 


	17. File #117: The Boston Dollar

Mark slammed the door shut behind him as he stepped out of the car, Amy standing up on the other side. 

“You sure?” Her voice was sharp as he narrowed his eyes at the building.

“Yeah I’m pretty sure.” 

The two agents stood in front of the Boston Museum of Metropolitan Art. Mark pulled out his phone, finding the text from Ethan that showed him in front of “Water Shapes”, a famous Guditare Amy had recognized immediately. He’d gotten it when they’d made it about halfway up the coast to the city, and Mark just hoped that Ethan was still here.

He and Amy hadn’t spoken much on the way up, Amy was deep in research, and Mark was focusing on driving, but she had asked him again about the night at the opera, more or less just to make conversation, and an exhausted Mark had told her everything.

“Why did you go?” When she’d asked it, Mark had rolled his eyes. But she seemed sincere, and despite everything, he trusted her. 

“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I’ve always been impulsive like that. I think part of me wanted to see him again, without the pretense of everything around us.” 

“Makes sense,” she replied softly. 

“When he and I were kids, we were close. There were moments there...things I didn’t even become cognizant of until now.” He leaned back in his seat. “And I shut him out because I didn’t understand it, and my friends were merciless, and the things they said to him...I’ve always regretted just letting it happen.”

“Shit,” Amy murmured. “That’s horrible.”

“I was fucked up back then, still am a little bit. He and I...it was a lot all at once to take in. But I managed to finally apologize. I still don’t know exactly if he forgives me or not, and I don’t expect him to, but I just hope he understands that I...understand it now.” 

There was a pause from Amy before she spoke. “I think it’ll be good for you, and for him. Closure.” 

“Yeah,” Mark drew out the word. “We’ll see I guess.” 

Inside the museum, Mark flashed his badge at the security booth as they ended. “Official FBI business.” They were waved through, and Mark noted the worried looks on the guards faces as they leaned into their walkie talkies. 

He and Amy strode through the building, looking for the signs leading them towards the painting. They ended up in a room with high vaulted ceilings, the painting in the middle.

Amy hurried towards it, pulling out her phone to take pictures to send to their art department in case it was a fake. Mark scanned the room, and his eyes fell on the artsy couch bench that faced the painting. There, pushed down into the seats, was a small yellow button.

He lifted it up, and turned it over, noting a tiny plastic device on the back.

His phone buzzed, and Mark lifted it to his ear as he picked up the phone call.

“Where are you?” He grumbled into the receiver.

“You took longer than I expected.” Ethan’s voice echoed slightly in the space he was in. Mark hoped that meant that he was still in the building. 

“Well when you take off at random for Boston, it takes us a second to pack up everything and chase after you.” 

Mark motioned to Amy, and he moved to put the phone on speaker. 

“How sweet,” Ethan crooned. 

“Are you going to tell us where you are?”

“That ruins the fun!” He laughed over the phone. “Besides, I think you’re going to have a nervous curator after you soon. You’re a more memorable face than you realize, Fischbach,  _ especially _ to the art world.” Mark paused long enough for Ethan to gasp gently. “You didn’t think about that, did you? That if people see you in an art building you might get asked some interesting questions.” 

“Shit,” Mark watched as a red faced man in a white suit came barreling around the corner. 

“What is the meaning of this?” He came to a stop a few feet in front of Mark. “FBI? In our gallery? This doesn’t have anything to do with the Smiley Thief does it?” 

“It does, actually.” Amy introjected.

“Isn’t he only active in New York?” The curator crossed his arms over his chest. “If he’s come here, why not call our security first, and get the building locked down.”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that.” Mark normally hated pulling status, but this guy was an asshole. “We are federal agents looking into a possible suspect. If you think that your unbriefed, hired off the street security can do a better job of catching a high profile thief than someone who has trained for years for this position, then I don’t believe you quite understand anything at all.”

The curator looked like he might explode. Amy stepped in between them quickly, placing a hand on Mark’s chest. “Go find him,” she whispered sharply. 

“Yeah right.” He lifted his head, stepping back. 

The curator moved to go after Mark but Amy stopped him with harsh words he couldn’t hear. Sometimes he forgot how good at this she really was.

A lot better than he could ever hope to be. 

Mark headed towards the exit to the room, stalking down the hall. “Now that was really something, Mark. I didn’t expect that sort of thing out of you.” Ethan’s voice scared him as it came through his phone, which was somehow still connected through all of that.

“You didn’t disconnect?” 

“Of course not, I wanted to see what you’d do.” 

“Where are you, Ethan?” 

“When Amy’s done chewing him out, why don’t we all meet for some roasted nuts. How about in the Boston Common?” 

Mark stopped in the hall, pausing. “Why.” 

“Well I think that it’s about time you introduced me to your partner formally! I’d hate for my only impression on her to be from the time I figured her as a tail immediately.” Ethan paused. “I really hope she’s gotten better.” 

Mark scowled and disconnected the call. He scoured the building up and down until he got a text from Amy saying to meet her at the front of the building. Apparently she’d managed to calm the guy down enough to explain what she could, and he’d let her off with a warning. 

“I could knock that guy’s teeth out like it’s nothing, I don’t know why he kept acting like he was so high and mighty.” 

“I think it’s a Boston thing,” Mark remarked as he pushed the door to the building out into the open air. 

“So no Ethan?”

“He’s waiting in the Boston Common for us.”

“ _ What? _ ” Amy grabbed his shoulder. “And you didn’t get me  _ immediately?”  _

“It sounded like a trap,” Mark shrugged. “Also what’s wrong with making the dumbass wait for a little while?” He shrugged her hand off gently. “And it’s about time I get back at him for his constant annoyance.” 

The two of them walked across town to where Ethan said he’d be waiting, and sure enough, there he stood, holding a bag of roasted nuts. 

“That took you forever,” he shouted as they crossed through traffic to meet him. “Nut?” 

“Why does everything feel like a euphemism with you?” 

Ethan winked, holding out the bag. “Maybe you’re just looking for them.” 

Mark let out a low sigh and took one, popping it in his mouth. “These better not be poisoned.” 

“Har har har,” Ethan said in a weird accent. “You’ve figured my trap!” 

“If you weren’t under suspicion for art theft, I’d think that’s funny,” Amy commented lightheartedly. She stopped herself for a moment before reaching forward and taking one. “Well, it’s automatically funny if you’re making fun of Fischbach.”

“See!” Ethan turned to Mark. “I knew I’d like her.” 

“Why are you in Boston Ethan?” Mark knew why, but he wanted Ethan to confirm it. “To steal the…” he paused. “What’s famous in Boston again?” 

“A lot of shit,” Amy replied loudly. “Like, so much history.” 

“I’m here for a little vacation. Can’t a guy take a few days off?”

“You’re not going to Killertz?” 

Ethan stopped, leaning back on his heels. “The prison?”

“You were involved with the Blackbirds, right?” 

“Course not,” Ethan smiled that fake smile that Mark was beginning to be able to read. “Fearsome group of people, though.” 

Mark leaned in towards Ethan, eyes narrowing as he stared deep down into his expression. “You’re not going to steal anything here?”

“Steal, Mark? I would never.” 

“Alright,” Mark leaned back. “We’re good here.”

“What?” Amy furrowed her brow. “Wait, what do you mean?”

“He’s not going to,” Mark shrugged. “And I’m hungry.” He snapped his fingers towards Amy. “You wanna go get pizza?” 

Amy looked between Mark and Ethan and then back to Mark. “I mean sure, but…”

“It’s fine, he’s harmless.” His eyes turned towards Amy’s. “But I think we should take a little vacation too, see the sights. Maybe drop by the prison if we have too.” 

Mark pushed his hands into his pockets, and turned his back on the both of them, eyes towards whatever horizon he could see through the clumps of buildings.


	18. File #118: Plans

Kilertz Maximum Security was mostly stone and iron. Grey and black and deeply foreboding. Watchtowers loomed like massive metal eyes in the sky, and barbed wire seemed to line every surface it could touch.

It was surprisingly easy to get into the building despite this, with some convincing acting and feigned confusion, and Ethan had a good walk around the prison before heading back to the visitation check in. 

The walls inside were all the same dark grey. Perfect for hiding the grime and grim, he supposed. Even the windows were patterned with mesh to keep them from being broken in for an easy escape. It all made up a good concoction for an inescapable compound.

He wouldn’t even be fazed if he were to squeeze himself into one of the air vents and find it stuffed with safeguards and narrowed passages and steel wool. 

Ethan gripped the collar of his shirt as he shuffled down the hall towards the visitation room. 

It dawned on him that he was almost on the other side of the equation. Trapped behind these walls the same as the others. Like a rat. 

Ethan wondered how long he would’ve lasted in prison. He already didn’t do very well sitting around in his own apartment for a few hours, and he dreaded what it would’ve been like stuck against his will in a tiny room all day everyday. 

He swallowed down the anxiety that sparked against his fingertips and roiled his stomach, and he approached the registry that sat waiting for him to sign.

Ethan scratched down his name with nervous hands, but stilled himself enough to put on a brave face. The attendant waved him to sit, and he leaned against the wall before being called inside with a wave.

He was led past tables where inmates talked with visitors, before his eyes landed on a familiar face.

Somewhere past six feet, with a heavy, meaty jaw, and sandy hair that grew patchy on his head these days. He’d grown a sizable beard that only made his face look more square than it already was. 

Buddy Connery crossed his arms against his chest as Ethan took a seat across from him. 

“You really wanna risk it all like this?” Ethan spoke evenly, despite the terror that ran through him like a live wire. “We’re so close, and the, uh, the dogs are already on my tail.”

“If you’re doing your job right, then they shouldn’t be.” Connery growled. “You said you’ve been careful with my...packages. You’ve been carrying out the deliveries, right?”

“I have been, it’s just...an old friend happens to work for the dog catchers.” Ethan lifted his gaze up to Connery’s. “And you know how much dogs hate the mailman.”

Connery raised his eyebrows. “You’re fucking kidding.”

“Remember that guy I used to bitch about from high school?”

“Yeah,” he snapped his fingers. “What did Graykle call him? Oh yeah, old Come-and-Go.”

Ethan cringed at the name. “ _ Please  _ don’t call him that.”

Connery made a little huffing laugh. “I think I can call him whatever I want, both cause I’m in here, and cause of what he is.” He leaned forward towards Ethan. “And he’s really a-?”

“I found out on accident, he invited me out for coffee, and...”

“Nestor please tell me you didn’t fuck the whole operation-”

“No, no, I’ve got it covered, I used Graykle’s tech. We’re safe for now.” 

“Good.” Connery seemed to relax a bit at that. “So the face got out about a year ago, on ‘good behavior’.” He put up air quotes. “You know how she is. The muscle joined her a few months later, and Grak will get out a few days from now.”

“And you and...him?”

“I don’t give a shit about what happens to your half assed replacement. He can rot wherever  _ he _ got stuck for all I care.” Connery leaned forward. “I get out in about a week, and I’ll be up to New York for a new uh, ‘job opportunity’ moving me up there.” 

“You’re not afraid of starting right back up immediately? Don’t you want some cool down time?” 

Connery stretched his back, cracking his neck. “Don’t need it. I need to get back to work. I’ve been idle too long, and these hands need to get back to being mastermind again.”

“Right,” Ethan murmured. 

“You just need to keep up your half of the bargain.” 

Ethan gulped down the sudden terror that jumped up into his throat. “Yeah I got it.” 

“You know what you have to do, right?”

“ _She’s_ got me memorizing it up and down.” 

“Did you tell Grak about the dogcatcher?” 

Ethan nodded. “First thing I did.” 

“So she’s factored it in. Good.” Connery leaned back again. “And you’re prepared for everything this entails?”

Ethan paused for a moment, thinking before speaking, and was interrupted by the sound of metal chains rattling against the table.

“If you’re not, you know what we’re going to have to do, right?” 

He just nodded quickly. “Yeah...I'm sure.”

“On second thought.” Connery stopped as he looked up at the clock. “Mmm. Time’s almost up." He placed his hands on the table with a thud. "If you can’t get your dog off of your tail, you're gonna have to bury it." His eyes burn into Ethan's almost painfully. "And if you can’t do it, I will.” 

Ethan’s eyes went wide, but he simply stood and nodded. “Of course. I’ll see you soon.” 

Connery said nothing as he left, but Ethan knew he was watching him leave.

Ethan took the train back into Boston, heart pounding as he thought over what Connery had said.

_ Ethan had never done had to do something like that before.  Connery always asked the muscle to do that shit, never him. _

He’d had fun playing with Mark, and despite his status, had never even really seen him as that terrible of a threat. Sure, he was an agent, and whatever, and could very easily stick Ethan into a building like that…

Fuck. 

The thought suddenly sobered him like nothing else. He could be stuck here. For the rest of his life. 

It had been a game for the past few months. The stuff he’d stolen hadn’t even been that priceless. He’d even thought about returning it all eventually.

Ethan seemed to forget why he’d chosen the life of the Blackbirds. It wasn’t for fun or jokes, it was for money, and for Connery, and sometimes Graykle, power. Prestige. 

He began to comb through the sugar coating he’d given his memories from those long years ago. The things he’d turned his head from. What they’d done to stay safe up until the very end.  He’d been just a kid back then, fresher faced than he was now. They had mostly been a group of newbies to the game, but now…

He supposed that Connery asking him to kill Mark to get rid of him didn’t really come that much out of left field. But it did still catch him off guard. 

Maybe he had to start rethinking all of this…  Perhaps this wasn’t as good of an idea as he’d hoped.


	19. File #119: Open Secrets

Mark folded his jacket over his arm as he strode down the road, his phone to his ear. “Yeah Amy, I know.”

“You’ve been working yourself to death since Ethan went to Boston, and now that he’s coming back, it’s time you took some time to yourself.”

“You’re one to talk,” Mark rolled his eyes. “You need a break as much as I do.”

“And I’m taking one!” Amy laughed over the phone. “I’m going up to see my parents for the weekend, so Ethan better not make you do anything stupid while I’m gone.” 

“Mm I’ll try my best.” He looked up before crossing the street. “Just don’t have too much fun while you’re gone. I wish I could go home to visit my folks.” 

“I’ll bring you back some cobbler when I get back to New York.”

“Ah, looking forward to it already.”

“Alright, don’t mean to keep you. Have a nice weekend, partner.” 

“Course, you too. See you Amy.” 

He disconnected the call as he jogged across the street to his apartment, because hey, FBI agents jaywalk sometimes too. Mark pushed open the door to his apartment complex and jogged up the stairs to his apartment. He pulled his key out and put it into the door, ready to relax for at least an hour or two before hitting the files again. 

It wouldn’t hurt to at least look at them, even if he did break his promise to Amy. But it was already a  _ soft _ promise anyways. 

Mark slid into his front entrance, flicking the light on as he turned to close the door behind him. As he turned, he caught something in his peripherals. Mark froze as he looked towards the balcony at the end of his apartment. 

A figure stood leaning against the railing. Ice cold fear rolled down Mark’s back as he let his hand fall to his gun at his side. 

He moved slowly across his apartment, feet gently sliding across the ground as he tried to keep the floor from creaking under him. Mark lifted his gun, and toed open the door to the balcony, letting it swing outwards as he cocked his pistol in one motion.

“You have ten seconds to tell me what the  _ fuck  _ you’re doing here before I put two into you back.”

“Y’know I never knew that your bark could be so fierce.” The figure turned, and the familiar face of Ethan Nestor greeted him. He lifted his eyebrows. “But is your bite really so great?” 

Mark lowered his weapons and let out a breath. “Jesus fucking christ,  _ Ethan _ . You broke into my apartment?  _ Why? _ ” 

He then noted the look on Ethan’s face. The man looked paler than normal, his eyes frantic as he flicked them around. 

“You torment me and then, wait, how did you get in here?” Mark turned back towards his front door. “I have two locks, and a top notch alarm system, and…” Ethan still hadn’t spoken, and Mark furrowed his eyebrows. “...how did you manage to get past all of that.”

Ethan lifted up a black harness and a grappling hook. 

“Jesus, really?”

“Yeah I’ve kinda had a long day, I needed something easy.”

“Grappling onto a balcony is  _ easy _ for you?” 

“That’s not important right now.” Ethan waved his hand.

“Yeah what’s important is the fact that you just broke into my apartment-”

“Technically only your balcony!”

Mark pressed his lips together. “And that’s better?” 

Ethan lifted his hands. “I guess not.” He lowered them slowly. “And can you put your gun away?” 

“Why are you here?” Mark raised his voice slightly. He pushed his gun back into its holster as he placed his hands on his hips. “It’s kind of weird-” Mark widened his eyes. “ _ All _ of this is weird.” 

“Yeah, okay, okay.” Ethan shook his hands. “Can we just go inside, and then I’ll explain?” 

“People who knock on my front door or…” Mark drawled sarcastically. “I don’t know, maybe  _ schedule ahead _ , get to come inside.” He crossed his arms against his chest. “People who use a grappling hook to get onto my balcony while also denying their crimes against the state of New York and the United States get to stay outside in the cold.” 

“Yeah, okay, it was me Mark, are you happy?” 

Mark felt his jaw drop at once. “Wait, you’re joking.”

“No, Mark.” Ethan lowered his head slightly. “I’ve been breaking into museums across New York and stealing priceless artifacts and making your life a living hell.” 

“You do realize that I could bring you in right now.”

“I do.” Ethan replied. “But you also said you could get me a deal.” 

Mark leaned back on his heels, sputtering as he tried to speak. “Wait. What? Why now?” 

“It’s uh, the Blackbirds.” 

“Um, let me make us something to drink.” Mark led Ethan inside, closing the balcony behind them. “I didn’t...I guess I just didn’t expect  _ any _ of that.” 

He headed to the kitchen to make himself some coffee, and in a strange quiet whisper, Ethan requested tea. Mark didn’t have much, but Ethan took the green tea gratefully.

“I’m guessing this has to do with Kilertz?” Mark settled down onto his couch as Ethan took the chair across from him. 

“Yeah. Kind of.” Ethan closed his eyes. “Basically entirely.” He wrapped his hands around the mug and began to speak. “About eight years ago I was flunking out of college because I was stressed out about the debt I was accruing, and I was terrified I would end up hating what I was studying. I was working a shitty job at a gymnastics gym when I was recruited by Connery. I worked with the group for about three years before they were arrested.”

“So what about Mike Feller?”

“He was a patsy.” Ethan replied. “They got him to replace me while I went up to attend a funeral. Apparently something went wrong, and they all got caught. I don’t know if someone messed up, or if they happened to walk into a sting, but all I know is I got off scot free.” He shrugged with a shoulder. “And for a few years I laid low, before I got contacted by our hacker.”

“And now they’ve got a new plan?”

“Yeah, and it’s uh,” Ethan rubbed the outside of his arm. “It’s a big one.”

“Like what?” Mark raised his eyebrows. 

“Big enough that it’ll set them for life, so that they can hit it, and than make off with a enough money to set them for life.” Ethan lowered his voice. “Big enough that he asked me to either get out off my tail or...kill you.”

Mark’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”

“I don’t know what to do, they were never like this before, they never...I’m afraid that if they  _ know _ .”

“They might kill you.” 

“I’m even worried coming here might blow my cover, but only two of them are out so far, and I doubt he sent  _ them  _ after me.” 

“Alright.” Mark nodded. “You just keep up appearances. I’ll...work something out with my superiors. I know she’ll understand.” He paused, turning to look at Ethan as he stared out the window. “I can’t believe you managed all of that.” 

“Mmm,” he turned to look at Mark. “That’s my speciality, besides gymnastics. People trust me.” Ethan cocked his head. “You want to know how I got half of these done? I just  _ asked _ . When you’ve got a kind smile, and sweetened words, most people will let you in anywhere. I mean hell, I got a security guard to sleep with me in order to break in.” 

“Wait, your kidding…” Mark remembered back to the flustered guard a few break ins back. “You’re fucking terrible.” He laughed.

“Yeah I’m really something.” Ethan smiled for a second before his eyes darkened. “But you need to know, Mark. If you think I’m good, these people taught me everything I know, they’re better.” 

Mark nodded. “Shit’s gonna get complicated now, isn’t it?”

Ethan just grinned for the first time since he’d arrived. “Doesn’t it always with me?” 


	20. File #120: Memories

Ethan was pretty sure his nerves had never been this fried in his entire life. 

Connery got out about a week ago, and Ethan had been on pins and needles since, checking his email for updates, and waiting for the day of the meet up. They scheduled it for a Tuesday afternoon, when the subway traffic was the lightest, and Ethan could easily slip past security with no problem.

Bundled up in a thick coat much too warm for the current season, Ethan pulled a baseball cap over his head, putting on a pair of dark sunglasses and a black allergy mask that hugged tight on his face. He strapped on a pair of chunky boots that nearly made him trip over his own toes, and trekked through the subway, waiting for the train to leave before ducking down the stairs and into the abandoned tunnel. It smelled horrible, mold and mildew and what was probably rat shit, but it was their best chance at keeping themselves hidden.

The energy was familiar as he’d approached, a twinge of both excitement and anxiety in his stomach. Even the dingy subway car that he'd found and had Graykle carve out and fill with tech and lights, and all sorts of blackout tarps felt somewhat like home. He’d knocked on the outside in the same rhythm Graykle had taught him years ago, and the door swung open.

A short woman with reddish brown hair stuck her head out of the open door and scowled at him. “You’re late.” Ethan just smiled. In her own way she’d practically picked him up and swung him around with excitement. Usually Graykle said nothing at all. At least she was _somewhat_ happy to see him.

He had no idea what the others would be like.

As he entered, he pulled off the disguise, hanging his coat on whatever looked the least likely to explode, or make Graykle explode. He balanced his hat and mask on top of it, and slipped his sunglasses into his pocket as he took stock of the situation in the room around him.

Connery was sitting in a chair at the back corner of the room, arms crossed against his chest as he gave Ethan a similar expression that Graykle just had. Omar was leaning against the far wall, his head turned towards a slit in the window, away from Ethan. Liza was the only one with a sympathetic expression, but even she seemed more nervous than normal.

“Hey guys…” Ethan stuttered. “It’s been awhile.” 

“Yes,” Connery nodded. “It has.” 

“Did you do everything like I told you in the emails?” Graykle didn’t turn from where she was slamming commands at lightspeed into her computer. 

“Everything,” he replied quickly. “It’s how I paid for all this stuff. Like you asked.” 

Connery leaned forward in his seat, his hands clasped together in a clawed fist, like if Ethan said the wrong thing he might slam it down on his head and crack his skull in two. “And did you do what  _ I _ asked…?”

“With the agent?”

“Yes. Him.” 

Ethan paused for a moment. He’d rehearsed this, and yet he still didn’t quite know what to say. “Yeah.” He muttered. “I shook him off.” 

Connery said nothing for the same amount of time Ethan had faltered before speaking. “Good.” His eyes flashed dark as he stood to move towards where Omar was standing. “I’d expected as much.” Connery clapped his hand on Omar’s back. “We should do a quick sweep of the area before continuing.” He turned back to look at Ethan before pushing open the door. “Just in case.” 

As soon as the door closed Liza’s voice piped up. “He’s just on edge Ethan, it’s not your fault.” 

“It is his fault,” Graykle said from behind the computer. 

“ _ Hey _ ,” she snapped at Graykle. “He’s already nervous, don’t make him feel even worse.” 

“Well it’s not _my_ fault Connery blames him,” she muttered. “Just stating facts.” 

Liza pressed her lips together and rolled her eyes before settling them on Ethan. “I for one, am glad you’re back.” She crossed the subway car and leaned against the wall next to him. “You made everything just a little bit more fun.” 

Looking at her for the first time in five years struck Ethan deep in the gut with guilt. He noted how much she’d aged in the past few years, how much of it might be his fault. She was still a beautiful woman, the same 'face' he'd gotten to know over the years, but her eyes seemed a little more weary, and the black hair she once sported in a perfect bob was now streaked with bits of grey, and curled past her shoulders. 

Besides Graykle, Liza was the only other person he’d gotten along the best with. She was kind but firm, and he’d learned a lot of his own acting techniques from her. 

It hit him suddenly how much she’d lost out on. She had a kid in middle school when she got put away, and Ethan wondered how much of his life she’d missed because of that. 

“How’s Felix?” He asked, “and Todd?” 

Liza got misty eyed as she pinched his cheek between her fingers. “ _And_ you’re considerate, I missed that too.” She wiped under her eyes to keep her makeup from running and laughed. “They’re fine. Felix went to live with his grandmother upstate, he barely talks to me anymore.” She waved her hand. “Not because he’s ashamed, but because school made it difficult to come out and visit.” Liza laughed, “and Todd, Todd’s still a dog, so he’s always happy to see me. It’s just strange to see how grey he’s gotten.” She reached up and fussed with her hair. “And just how grey  _ I’ve _ gotten.” 

“I’m so sorry Liza.” Ethan swallowed down the guilt rising in his throat.

“Aw, kid it’s not your fault.” She held up a hand as Graykle cleared her throat. “I  _ don’t _ blame him. I don’t care if you think I do, I don’t.” Liza raised her voice substantially. “And no one should blame him because we should’ve just dropped the heist altogether.” She rolled her eyes again as Graykle growled something under her breath. Liza clapped him on the shoulders, the bangles on her wrists jingling, and the warmth of her eyes reminding him of her familiar spunk. “It really is good to see you.”

“‘I'm really happy to see you too.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “With all Connery’s been, I was worried _all_ of you had turned into hardened prisoners during your time away.”

“I just think we all handled it differently. Omar went quiet, Graykle put her nose to the grindstone, and I accepted what had happened, and we all came out changed people because of it. And Connery, I think he just stewed in his anger about it, thought of every possible way it could’ve gone right, thought of every possible job that would set us for life.” She cocked her head to the side. “And I guess me getting out early really helped him.” 

“Wait,” Ethan narrowed his eyes. “Set us for life?” 

“He didn’t tell you?” Liza furrowed her eyebrows. “The big, uh, excuse my language, the bigass plan, the one you’ve been a part of since he got in contact?” 

“I don’t know a ton, I’m the gymnast not the fixer.” 

“Connery’s making this thing one big bash.” Liza turned her head to the side. “It’s an all or nothing sort of thing.” 

Ethan’s eyes went wide. “Shit, that makes sense why he didn’t want a permanent place to stay.” He looked up at Liza. “When, where?” 

“I don’t even know, I think we’re just both going to have to wait for the details.” 

He just nodded as he leaned back against the wall. “Alright.” 

Connery and Omar arrived back a few minutes later, and the leader of the Blackbirds stood at the front of the subway car. “It’s a few weeks away, but we’ve got to get ourselves ready. One last job, and then we disappear.” 

Ethan lifted his eyebrows but said nothing. He hadn’t known that either. But it was better not to strike up his problems with the plan. Better to just go along with it. 

Still, he couldn’t stop himself from being curious. “What are we going to hit?” 

Connery lifted his head to Ethan. “Something fun, something where security is so bothered with the heavy hitters, they won’t notice us slipping under the radar.” He smiled for the first time since Ethan had seen him in prison. “We’re going for the Met Gala, of course.” 


	21. File #121: The Good Little Soldier

Mark huffed under his breath as he headed down to the alley where Ethan had coordinated the most recent drop. They couldn’t talk in person anymore, and it was driving him mad. Before he’d at least been able to track what Ethan was doing, but now things were getting...difficult. It was getting harder and harder to keep his plan from breaking out in the open.

He slipped down the street like he was just another commuter trying to take a sneaky backway to get to his destination quicker. The case sat pushed back up against a wall, next to a storm drain, and Mark picked it up in one motion, pulling it with him as he circled back to his van. 

He still hadn’t told Amy about it yet either. As much as he was beginning to trust her, he was also worried for her safety. He knew she could handle herself, but it didn’t stop him from worrying about her.

As annoying as she could be, he’d grown fond of her in the time they’d worked together. Mark would’ve hated it if she ended up abandoning him like his last partner. 

So it was better that she didn’t know, and that he kept it to himself...for now. He’d tell her eventually, when the time came that he needed her help, but it’d stay his secret for the time being.

Mark climbed into the back of the van and slid the door shut behind him, opening the briefcase and pulling out the drive inside. He plugged it into his computer, and watched as the code flicked to life. 

Mark leaned back in his chair as the computer went about cracking the cypher inside. It was strange how much he wished that it wasn’t a computer telling him this stuff, and instead an annoying little twerp who made his blood do everything short of boiling. 

What was it about Ethan that was so addicting? It was like even being around him was a drug in itself. He furrowed his eyebrows as he thought more about it.

Mark had never really been close to anyone since high school. After college and the FBI program, he hadn’t really felt the need for people like that. Work had consumed him, turned him into something else.

He hadn’t really thought about the last case in a while, but that was the worst of it. Mark had holed himself away for days on end, barely sleeping, barely eating, just working and working until it broke him. 

That last case...it wasn’t a drug ring or sex trafficking. Well, it had started like that. Then he traced back the details a little too far, until he’d tracked the corruption back to his own department. The feelings still stung, even now, thinking about the horrible things he read about his coworkers. How they’d all looked at him after they knew he knew.

Of course he blew the whistle, of course he nearly attacked his fellow agents, he was terrified any one of them might do to him what they’d done for the agency. He’d gone over Amherst's head because he was afraid she wouldn’t stick up for him.

He was a whistleblower, and those kinds of agents don’t stick around very long. Mark had lived terrified, and he’d lashed out, and even now, he was still scared.

The agents who’d done that stuff were gone now, but Mark had always worried for his safety after that. Maybe he’d get stuck in a shootout and his partner wouldn’t cover for him. Let circumstances happen.

It’s why he’d been terrified of telling Amy what had happened. That she’d turn on him too. 

The corner of his mouth ticked up. Even before he knew her well, he still cared about what she thought. 

As the numbers ticked down into full formed words, then sentences, and finally into paragraphs, he furrowed his eyebrows, not at the page, but at his own thoughts.

Strange. Being around Amy always calmed him down, centered him, focused him. Being around Ethan stirred him up like crazy, made him think of things he might never have alone.

Maybe both...maybe-

Mark’s watch beeped twice to remind him that Amherst was expecting his report soon. She also didn’t know about this deal with Ethan either. It was making him nervous how much this case was turning out like the last. 

Not telling people what he’d found had been his downfall, he hadn’t had enough time to collect himself so he just...broke.

Mark shook his head, tightening his face as he pressed his lips together, focusing back in on the words on the screen. 

Oh.  _ Oh shit _ . 

Amherst’s office never seemed to change. The same uncomfortable chairs, the open mouthed windows that looked out on red-brown buildings, the light streaming in always making him squint. Clumps of ferns and other office plans strewn around. The same cold grey walls paneled with even deeper charcoal grey in places to make the room seem more inviting...It never was.

Director Amherst was sitting behind her desk when he knocked on the door to enter, a pair of glasses on her nose. 

“Yes, Fischbach?” 

“Afternoon Director.” He slid into the room, trying to remember the report he’d memorized. 

“How are things?” 

“Uh, good, we’re currently cross referencing-”

“Do you not want to take a seat?” She looked up at him from behind her glasses. “The chairs aren’t  _ that _ uncomfortable, I’ve heard you lot out there complaining about them.” 

“Of course, Ma’am.” 

“So.” She straightened her papers and pulled her readers to hang down around her neck. “How are things?” 

“The case, we’ve been working hard at cross referencing dates and time with our suspects, and we’re getting really close, but we’ve still not turned up anything that can help us bring in someone we know for certain did all of this.”

Her eyes seemed to dim a little as she looked down at her paperwork. “I’m not happy to hear that you’re still where you were a week ago…” Mark felt himself start to panic,  _ he’d varied what he’d said last week enough, right? He’d changed enough that it wasn’t the same _ . “But I’m glad to see that you seem happy.” 

“What?” Mark cocked his head to the side. “Wait, what do you mean?”

“If it means that you don’t look like a walking corpse coming up and down the hall while working a case, I’m glad that it’s taking you a little longer than normal.”

“I have plans in place-” Mark interjected. “I’m working hard.” 

“Mark,” Amherst lifted her eyebrows. “I’m not mad at you. What part of any of that made you think I was mad with you?” 

“I-” 

“Sometimes cases take time. I want you to beat this guy as much as the rest, but I also value that you’re healthier than you were in your last case.” She narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t like that you went over my head and  _ lied _ to me. But you did a good thing in the end Fischbach, you saved a lot of good agents and good people from a lot of bad ones.”

“Right.” Mark nodded. “I’m trying.”

“Wonderful, I’m glad.” She looked back at her papers. “And what about Agent Nelson, how are things going with her?”

“She’s actually a fantastic partner,” he replied with a half smile. “I really like her.”

“Good,” Amherst nodded. “I hoped you would. That’s why I chose her for you after all. I knew she’d make you take a step back and look at your own choices.” She waved Mark away with a hand. “I’ve got work to do kid, and so do you.” 

He stood, “yeah, yeah, I’ll get on it.”

Amherst gave him a wink behind her glasses. “Be good to her, she’s not just a lifelong partner, she’s a lifelong friend, I can tell.”

“Uh, thanks, Director.”

She just gave him a knowing smile as she returned to the papers on her desk. 

Mark walked almost speechless to the bullpen, in no way expecting  _ that _ to be how the meeting had gone. But Amherst was right, she was  _ always _ right if he thought about it, but he’d never admit that to her face. 

Amy sat at her desk, brushing her hair out of her face as she nearly buried her face into her computer. 

“When am I ever going to catch you slacking off?” He asked as he took the seat across from her.

“Ha,” she gave him a pity snort without taking her eyes off of the screen. 

She was pretty, he thought to himself. Not Ethan pretty, because he was a different sort of pretty, and in that moment, he realized something that felt like a punch in the chest.

There was always one or the other, always choosing sides, choosing identities. But why not both. Why couldn’t he have both.

Especially when he was realizing that maybe he really wanted both. 

It was then that he knew he should tell her. The truth. About the operation, Ethan, his past, all of it. Because out of everyone, she deserved to know. 

Amherst was right, she was someone worth keeping around.

“Amy?” She let out a ‘hmm?’ that let him know he had the barest bit of her attention. “Do you wanna go grab some lunch, take a break? I have some interesting things to tell you.” 

Her eyes lifted from the computer. 

“Somethings I think its about time you heard.” 


	22. File #122: A Subway Car Called Disaster

The subway car got pretty hot after the five of them sat in for over an hour, and Ethan was beginning to savor each time one of them suggested a break to let it air out. The heat wasn’t the only thing getting to him, Connery, Omar and Graykle were all practically breathing down his neck making sure that he wasn’t about to flake or mess up.

Only Liza ever seemed to give him breathing room, but her alone wasn’t always enough to fend off the others. Every glance towards him felt cold, off, in a way. He wasn’t sure if it was even him anymore the more he talked, as he laid out his own plans, Omar and Grayckle seemed to change the way they looked at him, only steeling their faces when they saw Connery’s. 

It was like they were still looking at the version of him from five years ago. The kid that had gone to a funeral and come home never to see them again without shackles. It hadn’t even been his fault, and they still looked at him like it was. 

He stood out a few hundred feet from the subway car, fanning himself with a hand, and trying to air out his shirt with the other. Liza came to stand next to him, just feeling the musty breeze coming from the empty subway tunnel ahead.

“How are you feeling, kid?”

“Like everyone in that room has at least one eye on me at all times.” He kicked at the dirt ground with the tip of his shoe. “It just feels like I’m never not being watched.”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “Prison was like that too, no place without prying eyes.” 

“Oh,” Ethan muttered, his mouth shaping out the word. “Yeah I guess.” 

Connery clapped his hands down the tunnel, shouting to them. “Alright, water break’s over, Grayckle says the temp inside is back down.” 

Liza held out her bent elbow and Ethan took it with a smile, and the two walked back together. 

The map of the Met lay on the floor, made of hastily taped together sheets of paper that had been printed from Grayckle’s computer. Connery had busied himself with drawing on it before Ethan had arrived, and now it was covered in stickers of where cameras sat, motion detectors, pressure plate floors, temperature controlled areas, mechanical doors, and all of the like. Pen and highlighter lines denoted their paths throughout the night, with tiny etched in words in Connery’s light script. 

It was honestly a sight to behold if he was telling the truth, but that wasn’t something to say to a man who looked like he might wring his neck at any moment. 

The constantly blowing fans made the paper jitter every few seconds, and Ethan rubbed the back of his neck as sweat began to bead there. He’d made the mistake of asking if the metro workers would notice all of the power being siphoned down here, and was sucked into a ten minute, one sided conversation where Grayckle explained to him: a) how dumb he was, and b) exaclty how it worked, in terms he really didn’t understand.

He shook his head and zoned back into the conversation. He was supposed to be a spy, and he wasn’t even being a very good one right now. 

“So Liza will be our in, she’s allowed to take one plus one, which will be Ethan, as he’s got a low ranking star status, and will be a bigger intrigue for the paparazzi than when we sneak in through the back doors with Omar as a security guard, and myself as a janitor.” He pointed out two spots on the map. 

Omar had started his ‘job’ about two months ago under a fake name and randomly generated, recently dead social security number that Grayckle had hacked to seem like him. Connery had done the same. It had been enough time that people no longer recognized his face, just his name, and a fake one of those had been enough to score him a position as a janitor. 

“Grayckle will be stationed outside, blocking signals and running interference when we need it. She’s already tapped into the Met’s local network while acting like a tourist.” 

“A hat and glasses are surprisingly and annoyingly good at hiding one’s identity.” She agreed from behind the computer. “I’ve been watching the security tapes for weeks.” 

There was more discussion, more planning, more everything, but less and less for Ethan to do, until-

“And then there’s you, Nestor.” 

Ethan raised his eyebrows. “What do you need?”

“You have a very important job, and I need you to promise me you’ll keep your head down and do it.” 

Ethan nodded in agreement. 

“Not only will you be acting as a distraction, but you’ll be the grab man.” Connery spoke, with a slight smile. Ethan’s eyes widened.

“You want _me_ to get everything?” 

“You’re strong enough, right?” He looked like he did before the last heist. Proud. So much had changed, and yet, now it felt the same. 

“Yeah,” he grinned. “I just might need some help lifting that Michelangelo sculpture.”

Ethan wrapped the case in tinfoil and dropped it down behind the green metal dumpster. Normally he didn’t wait for Mark, but today he missed the man’s shaggy haircut and dumbfounded expression. He knew it was a gamble, but he missed at least seeing him.

He knew he could easily get into the FBI headquarters again if he wanted to, but that was risking _everything_ , not just a chance some random person might see them. 

Ethan spider climbed the fire escape and waited on the first balcony with his legs dangling off, holding onto the ladder as he waited. It took a half hour, but Ethan expected that, and around the corner, he saw a familiar mess of black hair.

Mark looked tired, with bags under his eyes, and his tie undone. As soon as he got close, Ethan kicked down the ladder, scaring Mark as he immediately went for his gun.

“Hey, it’s just me?”

“What do you mean it’s _just me_ ?” Mark smoothed his hair back with a hand. “You just scared the shit out of me!” He stopped for a second. “ _And_ , you’re not supposed to be anywhere near here right now, what if-”

“If you stop shouting,” Ethan climbed down the ladder. “Then no one will know we’re here.” He turned to face Mark, straightening his coat. “Why do you _think_ I chose this place?” He poked a finger into Mark’s chest to punctuate his words. “It’s a dead zone. No cameras, hopefully no audio. We’re safe here.” 

Mark rolled his eyes as he caught Ethan’s hand. “Still never safe, you’re supposed to be undercover, not meeting me in a back alley!” 

“I wanted to see you,” Ethan pouted. 

Mark stopped and let out a breath. “That’s very cute, but not going to work.” 

“What if I said I had a reason?” Ethan grinned. 

“Something with the plan?”

“Kinda.” He pulled out his phone and opened the scrambler on it. Ethan looked up at Mark, “you might want to do the same.”

Mark opened his own scrambler and huffed out, “okay, what’s the plan?” 

“I think we should come up with some code words in case we need to communicate without really communicating, y’know?” Ethan winked.

“Alright, not a bad idea.” 

The two of them began to trade codeword ideas, Mark shooting down most of Ethan’s _really, very good_ ideas, and Mark helping him memorize what they came up with. It took longer than both of them expected, and Ethan helped Mark up into the fire escape as they finalized their list.

“You got those?” Mark asked one final time. 

“Oh yeah, very stairwell,” Ethan grinned. _Yes._

Mark pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please come up with a better hidden phrase than that.” 

“I’ll work on them,” Ethan laughed as he grabbed the side of the railing and flipped off of it onto the ground.

“Show off,” Mark muttered as he climbed down the ladder and threw it back up. He grabbed the tinfoil covered briefcase and turned to see if Ethan was still there. Mark turned his head to the top of the building at the end of the alley where Ethan sat on top, somehow having spidermanned his way up there. 

He thought about something for a second and shouted up to Ethan. “Hey!” 

“Yeah?” Ethan shouted down. Both doing the exact opposite of what they’d said not to do earlier.

“When all of this is over, I think we should talk!” 

“I’d hoped we would,” Ethan cupped his hands over his mouth. “I want to keep seeing your stupid expression when I inevitably escape your clutches again.”

“Yeah,” he laughed. “There’s some stuff I’ve been meaning to say.” 

He could see Ethan grinning from here. The man gave him a little salute and a nod, and disappeared from view. 

Mark sighed to himself, and headed back to his van to debrief Ethan’s notes.


	23. File #123: Girls on Film

“Alright, everyone’s listening?” Mark pulled the mic to his mouth. “We’ve got to make this look as clean as possible. Now, security knows that we’re here to monitor, nothing else. Be prepared for that.” 

He moved across the inside of the van as Amy buttoned up her disguise. “Remember, whatever you do, don’t break your cover unless you catch them in the act or something like that.” Mark tapped his finger onto the photos of Liza and Ethan that had been tabbed up on the wall. “Two of them are official guests, and if we rouse suspicion with them, then they’ll alert Connery, and it’ll be curtains for all of us, understand?” 

Amy gave him a grin and a nod. “We’ll all be going dark now, but in case of an emergency, use your cell phones. Remember, no suspicion.” He lowered the mic slightly. “Good luck everyone.” 

“I can’t believe you managed to coordinate all of this,” Amy laughed before lowering her voice. “And all without telling anyone about the Spider.” That was their codename for Ethan at the moment, as Mark decided there was no better name for the master of acrobatic thievery. 

“Well, we better hope this all goes well, or else Amherst is gonna have my ass  _ again _ about breaking protocol.”

Amy shrugged, “but you’re not lying about it to everyone this time.” She looked up at him with a warm expression. “I know, and Ethan knows, and it’ll be good for your record.”

He snapped his fingers into a point, “we can hope.”

She rolled her eyes, “sure.” Amy secured her taser to her belt and pushed the door open. “Just focus on the mission, alright?” 

Mark grabbed his hat off of the wall and pulled it tight on his head. “Right.” 

Together, they joined the stream of other personnel walking towards the building, and headed inside. It was about four hours until the guests would start arriving, but journalists, paparazzi, news crews, event planners, and security were running around like mad men trying to get everything finished.

The theme this year was ‘reflections’, which Amy had briefed him on when researching, and he’d laughed that it would just be an excuse for attractive celebrities to stare at themselves more. He hadn’t been wrong, there were mirrors and reflective surfaces everywhere, including a massive “pool” made completely of iridescent blue and white gemstones.  Mark elbowed Amy at every weird or interesting thing he saw, and she elbowed him right back. 

They approached the man they’d been briefed about, a tall man wearing a pure black suit, a badge on his lapel. 

“Are you Renor?” Amy asked as she approached.

“What’s it to you, shouldn’t you be at your stations?” The man turned up his nose.

Mark pulled out his badge and flipped it open with Amy in tandem, and both watched as the man’s eyes widened. “Special Agent Fischbach,” he gestured to himself, “and this is Special Agent Nelson. You should’ve been briefed.”

“Oh, dear, yes I was, weren’t you supposed to have already been integrated?” 

“Just a routine check in for the event tonight,” Amy supplied. “And we need to make sure we have access to every part of the building.”

“Well I’ll see what I can do but-”

“Every part,” Amy interrupted. “We’re here to ensure your guests safety, and we need access to everything you have, do you understand?” 

“Um, yes of course.” Renor turned and nodded before turning back, “I’ll check in with my people, get you set up.”

Mark turned to Amy with his mouth slightly open, “wrow,” he rolled the r with his tongue. “Didn’t think you were someone who called rank.”

“Don’t do it often,” she raised an eyebrow, a hidden smile on her face. “But sometimes we need to get shit done.” Amy clapped her hands. “Alright, you stay down here, watch for the Spider, I’ll be up in the security offices watching the cameras, and uh, barking orders.” 

He gave her a wink, “good luck, not that you’ll need it.”

She grinned, “you too,” and headed after where Renor had gone. 

Mark pushed his hands into his pockets and found a door to stand around, watching the room and waiting. He liked the building, with its open mouthed ceilings made for the acoustics, and the massive stairwell leading celebrities up to have their outfits photographed and judged by the world outside. 

Mark was glad all he’d had to worry about was the authenticity of his uniform, and not if every hair on his head was sticking up in the right direction. 

The lights in the room started to dim as stars and celebrities and actors began to flood in, starting with the presenter of the evening. Each outfit shown with bejeweled wonder and spectacle, some better than others, but most looking like they probably cost more than Mark’s car. 

Then he spotted them. An older asian woman with dark hair pulled up into a bun, wearing a beautiful gown that looked like it was spun from fine silver, absolutely dripping with diamonds that flower behind her in a train at her back, and…

Ethan walked along with her, arms linked with hers as he strutted along. He wore a pair of high-heeled silver boots, his shiny black pants cuffed at the ankles. Ethan wore a puffy cotton shirt that billowed around his sleeves, along with an ornate silver chestplate that tightened on his chest. His hair was swooped up with gel, and he held a silver mask in front of his face with his free hand, pulling it away to reveal a mirror on the inside, and a face full of makeup. Dangling from his ears were two perfectly bejeweled spheres.

Mark had to shake himself out of his stupor and made a motion to the camera he hoped Amy was watching, and began wading through the crowd as they passed.

He walked behind the rows of people with cameras, who were all shouting the name of the woman who had Ethan on her arm. Mark laughed as he heard the questions, “Liza! Ms. Wu! Who are you wearing? Ms. Wu! Who’s your escort?” More came from right and left too quick for him to catch, but they seemed enamored by Ethan. He could understand why. 

The way he moved seemed almost robotic, purposeful, like he’d memorized a complicated dance and only now was able to perform. It would be a crime to say he wasn’t beautiful. 

Ethan didn’t seem to catch him in the crowd, seemingly too enthralled by the cameras and the shouts. He’d yet to say anything, but Liza moved with a swan’s grace through the shouts like they were conversations with old friends. 

Mark headed into the main ballroom, requisitioning himself to the corner as he waited for Ethan and his bedazzled consort to arrive. His phone buzzed in his back pocket, and he pulled it up to his ear. 

“Something up?” 

Amy had been the one to call. “Nothing too important, but did you  _ see _ the Spider?” She giggled over the phone. “He looks like a porcelain doll.” 

“I think I would too if I put on makeup,” Mark shot back almost defensively. “But he looks good, doesn’t he?” 

“Really good, like a little medieval pot pie I could just eat up.”

Mark laughed at that one quietly before straightening up. “Do you have anything of importance besides how he looks? This line is supposed to be for emergencies anyway."

“Oh yeah, only that you might want to watch out for the security guard across the room, on your three. I think he’s one of Connery’s, guys, Omar.” 

Mark waited to look up as he ended the call with a gentle, “thanks.” He put the phone in his pocket and began moving across the room, catching a glance at a gigantic, nasty looking guy with a buzzcut and a scar. 

Mark headed into the bathroom at the end of the hall, only to find a certain someone leaning against the sink. 

“Took you long enough,” Ethan grinned, still holding the silver mask in front of his face. He pulled it away, revealing a soft green eyeshadow that brought out his eyes, dark mascara, a slight blush, and metallic silver lipstick.

“You know I’d be here?”

Ethan raised his eyebrows. “Well I  _ assumed _ we’d probably meet here, bathrooms are normally where secret rendezvous happen.”

Mark rolled his eyes and moved past Ethan, checking under each of the stalls. “And there’s normally other people in here with you.”

“There’s not, I checked.” 

Mark lifted his head, staring plainly at Ethan. “Well you could have told me that.” 

Ethan pouted out his lips, “but it was  _ funny _ to watch you try.” He straightened up a little and looked into the mirror, still staring at Mark through it. “It’s going to go down soon, they’ll send me the message to go while Liza distracts. There’s a truck outside on the back lot where we’ll be loading everything.” 

“Alright so we’ll quarantine it off,” Mark grabbed for his phone.

“No, no,” Ethan shook his head. “Omar and Connery have it watched, if they see FBI they’ll flee, it’ll be impossible to catch them then.” He held up a hand, “But, in order for them to load the truck, there's only one exit, down an elevator they'll use to smuggle things out from the third floor, and then practically out the backdoor. If you can get your people to block off the exit, and then you come down the elevator and chase them into the blockade, they won’t be able to escape.”

Mark’s eyes widened, and he clapped Ethan on the shoulders. “That’s brilliant.” 

Ethan gave him a weak smile. All of this appeared to be a lot for him, with so much of it riding on shoulders. The pressure probably having been there for years having been there for years. 

“I’ll call Amy and get it set up, and then you just come find me when it’s time, I’ll be waiting along the side of the building.” Mark made a motion with his hand, the symbol for  _ let's go _ . “And then I’ll know to follow behind you.”

“Good,” Ethan nodded, moving the mask back up to his face. “I’ll be ready. Let’s uh, let’s do this.” He nodded to Mark and exited, and Mark made a very important phone call to Amy.

“All set?” He asked for the third time. 

“We are now,” Amy responded with a sigh. 

“I can practically hear you rolling your eyes at me.”

“I am,” she responded mock-cheerfully. “Just keep your eyes on the prize Mark, we don’t want to mess this up.”

“I know,” he nodded. “I’ll let you go, it’s almost showtime.” 

Mark slid his phone back into his pocket, and waited impatiently as he watched the guests glide by in their shimmering clothing. He watched Omar across the room like a hawk when the man looked away for long enough, fingers tapping against his side as he waited.

Then the man disappeared from his view, and Mark looked to Ethan for the symbol. It came after he whispered something to Liza, and she nodded with that same forced movie-star grin he’d come to know so well from Ethan. The symbol was a quick motion, a random excited gesture to those around him, but a very clear message for Mark.

He began after Ethan, who headed down the corridor alone, before Mark joined him. Ethan pulled away his mask for just a moment, “alright, that’s it there,” he motioned with his head to the elevator. “When you hear the clatter coming from the main ballroom, hit the basement floor button in the elevator.” 

“Gotcha.” Mark smiled at Ethan. “Good luck.”

Ethan only gave him another smile in return, before turning on his heel and heading back into the gala. Mark only had to wait a few minutes before he heard the sound of shattering glass coming from the other room.

He pushed the button for the elevator and hopped inside, pressing the button for three, watching as the doors closed on the light from outside. Mark felt the adrenaline start to pump as the numbers began to go down.

And then he felt the elevator groan as it shuddered to a halt. In between floors. Mark felt the adrenaline turn into panic as the lights began to flicker out. He lurched forward and started pushing every button he could, trying to get something to work.

_ Had Ethan cut the power? _

He pulled out his phone as a sinking feeling began to sprout in his gut. No cell service, no wifi. Because of the power outage he didn’t even know what floor he was on, or which he was close to. Mark hoped that he was close enough to one of them to climb out, and jammed his finger into the open door button, sighing with relief as it pulled open easily. 

He could see the seam of the door above, and began to wiggle his way out. Mark was lucky there was enough room, or he might’ve been stuck there for a few hours.

It couldn’t have been more than five minutes he spent in there and trying to get out, it couldn’t have, but the second he got to somewhere with wifi and service, his phone began to blow up with notifications.

Amy’s call connected immediately, and she was practically screaming at him on the other line. “MARK WHERE ARE YOU WHAT HAPPENED?” 

“I almost just got stuck in an elevator, I think the power cut or something,” he replied as quickly as he could. “What? What’s happening?” 

“Nothing good, whatever tip you got about the blockade was wrong, no one ever came down that way.” 

“Yeah because I wasn’t there with the elevator.”

“No Mark, we sent people down there eventually, and no one was there, anywhere.” 

The reality of the situation started to crash down. Ethan wouldn’t...would he? “Fuck.” He disconnected the call with Amy and began running for the stairwell, punching Ethan’s number into the phone. 

The dial up tone rang again and again, but there was no answer. He called again, and again, and at least four more times. No answer. 

People in uniforms were already rushing towards the security vault, which Mark had checked on his rounds before the gala had even started, and inside...well it had been full this afternoon but now.

The room was completely empty.

And he’d been lied to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Might be a few chapters in a row here, we'll see! Trying to do some project cleaning because this story's kind of on the back burner for me right now, so I'm kicking in a home stretch to get it done :)


	24. File #124: Cold As Ice

“I can’t believe this.”

Mark sat in the dead silent office of Director Amherst, shuffling in the chair the same way he had several months ago. This time, however, Amy was in the seat next to him, seeming just as ashamed for what had happened.

“You did exactly what I told you  _ not _ to do, you went behind my back  _ again _ .” She threw up her hands. “And I don’t know how you managed to drag Agent Nelson into it, but both of you are going to be punished for this.” 

“Sorry.” Amy murmured.

“Sorry’s aren’t going to cut the massive media storm this is causing, the hundreds of millions of dollars of priceless artifacts stolen, and the amount of questions I have had to field about our involvement.” She placed her hands down onto her desk and looked them into the eyes. “Nelson you’re on probation, you can work on case work for other Agents, but none of your own. I want a report detailing  _ everything _ to do with the mission and resources used on my desk by the end of the day, do you understand?”

“Yes ma’am,” Amy ducked her head even lower, her face reddish with shame.

“You’re free to go.” She nodded before turning to Mark. “ _ You _ on the other hand, have a lot of explaining to do.” 

He waited until Amy closed the door behind her before speaking. “First off, this is entirely my fault, it got out of hand, and I...put some trust into someone I thought had my best interests at heart. Apparently, he didn’t.” 

“Yes, I want you to tell me everything, please spare no detail.” Her voice was flat and monotone, but her gaze softened as Mark set his jaw. “I want to get out on top of this, and a solid reasoning before the press is exactly what we need.”

So Mark closed his eyes, and spilled everything that had happened in the past few months. Amherst was furious about the dozens of breaches of protocol, but eventually grew quiet as Mark finished his story. 

“You’re kidding,” she said softly, scratching down notes onto a piece of paper. “The story sounds impossible, but knowing you...strange things tend to work out for you.” 

He paused, smiling slightly, “thanks?”

“That still doesn’t excuse what you’ve done, though.” 

“Am I also on probation?” 

“No,” she slid forward a piece of paper. “You’re on suspension until further notice starting immediately.”

Mark’s eyes widened, but he didn’t object. He supposed that he did deserve this. “When will I be reinstated.”

“That’s for the council to decide,” she handed him a pen. “There will be a formal hearing where I’ll have both your and Agent Nelson’s testimonies read in front of a council to decide whether or not you were acting in a way unbefitting of an Agent of the FBI.” Amherst sucked in her bottom lip. “And I’m sorry to say Fischbach, but from how I’m seeing it right now, even I’d be hesitant to vote to reinstate you.” 

“Will they include the things from the previous case?” He asked quietly, “are the council members agents?”

“No, and most of them are desk jockeys or higher ups.” She tapped the paper where he needed to sign. “But I’ll make sure you have a fair, impartial trial.” Amherst tried her best to catch his eyes. “Because I believe that you will make a good replacement for me one day, I just have to make sure that you won’t continue being reckless like this.” 

“I’ll try,” Mark replied, for once in his life not sure if he was telling the truth, or a bold faced lie. 

“I will need your badge and gun, and you’ll want to clear out valuables from your desk.” Mark stood, unclipping his badge and pulling his weapon out of its holster, and set them on the table. “And please, just try and get some rest while you’re on suspension, another mess up, and I’ll be forced to make your suspension permanent.”

“Understood,” he gave her a nod. 

She furrowed her eyebrows. “And I know you have something planned, you wouldn’t be this quiet if you didn’t but please-”

“Director, I promise for once.” He gave her a weak smile. “I’ll stay out of trouble.”

Mark pushed the door to his apartment open, shutting it with his back as he leaned his head up against it, closing his eyes. 

_ How could he have been so stupid?  _ He knew what Ethan was capable of, he’d seen him in action, he was a master manipulator, why couldn’t he see it coming?

Mark knew why, rubbing his face with a hand to try and clear away his thoughts, but he wanted to pretend it was some other reason. That Ethan was too good, not that Mark was too weak.

He headed into the kitchen to make himself something to eat when he saw it.

A familiar figure standing on the balcony. 

Mark really wanted to ignore it. There was nothing more he wanted to do than just pretending it wasn’t there and then heading into his bedroom and throwing the covers over his head. But he really wasn’t that person, and instead headed to the open the doors of the balcony.

“How long have you been waiting?” He asked, trying to bite back his anger.

“Oh,” Ethan grinned that cocky smile. “A while, but you’re worth the wait.”

“Don’t,” Mark snapped softly. He looked hard at Ethan, trying to find anything in his face that looked like his friend. Ethan’s expression was friendly, but cold. The same way he’d looked when they’d met at that coffeeshop. 

“Y’know I really didn’t expect it to be  _ this easy _ . I thought that you might have a way to make this more of a trick for me.”

“Why, Ethan?” Was all he could manage to ask.

All the man did was shrug. “It was as easy as cheating at cards with a blind man.” 

“Then why are you here?” He narrowed his eyes. “Why would you come alone to see someone you just stabbed in the back. Someone who you know is trained with a firearm.”

“To gloat, basically.” Ethan laughed. “And there’s a sniper on the roof.” He pointed behind him, and Mark’s eyes flicked up to the top of the next building, spotting the flash of something aimed at him. 

Mark lifted his hands into the air instinctively, but Ethan waved them down. 

“He won’t shoot you unless I tell him to.” Ethan folded his hands behind his back. “I like the power, I don’t feel like a spider whose fallen off his web anymore.”

Mark felt a tremor go down his back. There was no way.  _ Spider meant Ethan. Fallen off a web meant that he was in danger _ . 

The codes. The secret codes they’d made together in the back alley before the heist. Ethan was using them. That meant….

“Did you grapple up here or use the stairwell this time?” Mark hoped that Ethan would understand he was saying yes, he was confirming, he knew, he understood. 

“I wish I took the stairwell.”

Mark almost started bursting out laughing. He thought back through the earlier phrases. Mark  _ knew _ Ethan’s phrase about the cheating cards seemed odd, but it made sense now.  _ Cheating means change of plans, cards means game, or the heist, and blind meant secrets _ . 

That meant...

_ Ethan hadn’t double crossed him at all, _

“Right.” He folded his hands together and tugged on his right thumb, pretending to pop it.  _ Message received. _

“I wish I could stay here and chat more with you, but the boss doesn’t wait for anyone. Even asked me to check his email for him the other day.”

“Odd,” Mark replied.  _ Ethan wanted him to check his email _ . 

“I mean, have you ever noticed how many spam emails you get sent these days?” He gave Mark a wink, grabbing the rope attached to Mark’s balcony. “Bet you like the ones you get from the New York Times about the Smiley.” 

“I’ll get you, you bastard.” Mark said almost seriously. “I’m not going to let you guys get away with this.”

“How are you going to do that on suspension?” Ethan’s voice mocked him, but his expression was serious.

“I’ll figure it out.” Mark gritted his teeth.

Ethan winked, “good luck. Can’t wait to escape you again.” 

He lifted a large grappling gun and shot it up onto the next building over. Ethan leapt off the side of the balcony, swinging on the rope and disappearing into the night.

“Not this time.” Mark said softly, pulling out his phone and opening his email.


	25. File #125: As Good as It Gets

Ethan arrived at the docks about twenty minutes after his conversation with Mark. He couldn’t believe Mark had  _ actually _ managed to understand him, but he was glad that he did, as he only had one chance to stop this from happening.

He’d made a code and put it into a fake New York Times email to Mark, and he hoped that he’d gotten the clues to understand it. 

They’d moved everything into a massive warehouse outside of town, waiting for midnight, when an ocean freighter would come and help smuggle all of the goods to a few select islands in the caribbean, where they’d stay until the heat died down and they could get some buyers. 

Ethan wasn’t much a part of that side of the business, but he did enjoy knowing how it worked. And it was important to know too, because if all of this ended tonight, he’d probably have to testify for his freedom.

The Blackbirds were waiting for him inside the warehouse office, Graykle cross legged on the couch, Liza standing with her hands clasped together, Omar leaning against a wall, and Connery with a bottle of champagne in his hands. All waiting for him. 

He still didn’t know how Omar had managed to get her first, he’d been all the way up on the building with a sniper rifle and Ethan had been spidermanning his way here. 

Regardless, he seemed pleased to see Ethan for once, they all did. 

“I really can’t believe it,” Connery laughed. “It feels good to get away with something again.” He clapped Ethan on the back. “And we couldn’t have done it without you. I can’t  _ believe _ you managed to double-cross that agent.”

Ethan let out a shaky laugh. “It was all about misdirection I guess.”

“I’ll say,” Liza grinned. “I had fun knocking over that tower of champagne.” She leaned over to Ethan, stage-whispering to him. “You won’t  _ believe _ the things the tabloids were saying about me.” 

Ethan nodded towards the bottle, “what’s that for?” 

“Oh, I’m going to smash it against the outside of the boat when it arrives, for luck.”

“Luck, yeah,” he nodded almost too enthusiastically. 

“But we’re set!” Connery chuckled. “No more jobs, no more nothing, just home free from here, we’ll sell the art and statues to rich idiots in the caymans. Just a few more hours.”

Those next few hours went by like days, as horrible knots began to tie themselves in Ethan’s stomach. He laughed and joked with the gang, but all of them turned sour on his tongue. 

Ethan knew he could cut himself a deal, but what about Liza? She didn’t deserve any of this. Omar, Graykle, and Connery maybe, they’d all done terrible things to make money, but when Liza had joined it was because she’d needed it. It’d been the same for him. 

They’d bonded over it in their time working as the Blackbirds, and Ethan knew he’d feel terrible if she got roped into another sentence. He knew that this one would be much longer than the last. Maybe he could cut her a deal too.

She was a master of body language and manipulation after all, maybe the FBI would find some use for her.

It was at a quarter to midnight that Ethan heard it, the sound of the warehouse door opening. Connery seemed to hear it too, but he appeared to be under the impression that it was the freight driver, here just a little early.

“You all wait here, I’ll go speak to the Captain.”

“I’ll come with,” Ethan piped up before adding, “just in case.” Ethan swallowed down worry as he followed Connery out into the main room, where crates filled with priceless artifacts sat waiting for transport. 

“Captain Ramone? Is that you out there?” 

A voice Ethan recognized responded. “Um, yes, where are you?”

“We’re down the second row,” Connery replied, “where are you?”

“Coming your way!” 

Agent Mark Fischbach appeared around the corner with a slight smile. He flashed Ethan a look, and he gave Mark one back.  _ Had he brought back up? _

“You have the freighter outside?”

“Yep it’s all docked.”

“Then just lead the way.” Connery seemed too high on his own fumes to notice that something seemed off about him.

Mark led them outside, his gate slowing as he neared the water. 

Ethan didn’t see the gun, but he heard the hammer click into place. 

“Hello agent,” Connery spoke. Mark threw his hands up, back turned to both Ethan and Connery. “I’d expected Ethan to betray me, but I thought he’d do it a lot sooner.

“You knew?” Ethan was surprised.

“Of course I knew, I watched everything you did on the news, you spats with the agent called Mark Fischbach.” He looked towards Ethan. “You really didn’t think I was going to see what he  _ looked like _ ?” 

Ethan fell back slightly. “Omar!” Connery barked. The man appeared out of the shadows, also brandishing a gun, this time pointed at Ethan. “If you didn’t betray me here, I was going to kill you on the way, toss your body into the ocean for only the fishes to remember you.” 

“That’s...thoughtful of you,” Ethan said sheepishly. 

“Walk them towards the back of the warehouse,” Connery said to Omar. “We’ll bring them on the freighter with us, and then just kill ‘em there, it should be here any minute now.”

Connery shoved Ethan forward to stand in line with Mark against the warehouse. “I’m really sorry about this,” Ethan murmured to Mark.

“Shut up,” Connery growled at him. “Talkings for non-traitors.” 

Mark shuffled towards him slightly, and Ethan got the message. 

Ethan supposed that it made sense after this whole whirlwind, it would end with both of them getting shot on a boat together. It was almost poetic, like a weird art house romeo and juliet. 

“Can I ask you something?” Mark said to Connery. “I’m not a traitor, to you at least, but I just want to know why you did all of this?”

“Ah, FBI boy wants to know why?” Connery looked to Omar and laughed. “I’m not going to tell you jack  _ shit _ .” 

“Well it was worth a try.” Mark responded.

“Just, shut up, will you?” He lifted his eyebrows. “Or should I start shooting now?” 

“No, no, please, it’d be great if you didn’t.” He cleared his throat. “This whole thing is really a big mess.”

_ Big mess meant help,  _ Ethan remembered. Was Mark trying to tell him to do something? Was help coming? 

Then Ethan thought he heard something that sounded like a car door, maybe footsteps. “Y’know,” he raised his voice, “if I get out of this, I’m going to tell them everything.” 

“Do you really want to test that?”

“Yeah, he’s all set up to testify,” Mark bluffed. “It’s already set up at the headquarters as soon we bring you in.”

“And how are you going to do that, just the two of you?” He chuckled. “It’s two against one, and we’re the ones with the guns.”

“Yeah I don’t think so,” a voice came from Ethan’s left. Amy appeared around the corner, and suddenly they were swarmed by a clattering battalion of heavily armed SWAT agents. “Put your weapons on the ground and come calmly, you’re under arrest.” 

Omar set his weapon down, but Connery didn’t seem to want to budge. “I can’t believe you’d side with them.” He spat towards Ethan. “I’m gonna make you regret ever partnering with them.” 

“Good luck with that.” Ethan replied shakily, lowering his hands as two other agents wrestled Connery’s hands behind his back. “I hope you like spending the rest of your life in Killertz.” 

The agents carted off a snarling Connery, and Amy led Mark and Ethan to her car, handing them some mints and the blanket she kept in the back.

“It’s not ambulance treatment, but it’s something.”

“How did you do all of this?” Ethan asked incredulously. “I thought you were on suspension?”

“I called Amy, and then she called some people.” He looked up at her with stars in his eyes. “We’re lucky that basically everyone back at headquarters likes you, or else Ethan and I might’ve been sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic.” 

“Thanks Amy.” Ethan said sincerely. 

“You’re both very welcome, but-” she stuck her finger into Mark’s face. “You owe me big time when you get reinstated.” 

Mark sighed. “If I get reinstated.” 

“ _ When _ ,” she replied sharply. “You’re  _ not _ about to abandon me. I will bother Amherst every day if she kicks you off.”

“If I kick who off?” A voice came from behind them. Amherst was walking towards them, head held high. “Ms. Nelson told me about the operation, and that it’d been a success. Though it was incredibly stupid.” 

“Yeah, sorry.” Mark rubbed the back of his neck.

“But it will also be placed in the file for your reinstatement hearing.” She clasped her hands together, looking to Ethan. “Now, I believe from the rushed message I received, you have quite a lot to tell us.” 

“I’m willing to tell you everything,” Ethan nodded. “Details, locations of drops, old plans, heists they didn’t even get caught for, but I want immunity for myself and Liza Wu.”

Amherst pressed her lips together, thinking. “How about you and Mr. Fischbach come to my office tomorrow. I’ll have you both under protective custody for the evening, just in case. I think we have a lot to discuss.”

Ethan watched as agents began bringing out massive crates of art and statues, along with a handcuffed Graykle and Liza. “Yeah, I think we will.” 


	26. File #126: The Agent and The Thief

Ethan sat in one of the chairs facing Director Amherst’s desk, Mark in the chair next to him. Mark was wearing the new badge he’d been given about a week ago when he’d been reinstated on temporary probation, and had a somewhat genuine smile on his face almost constantly these days.

After the arrests, Ethan had spent several hours at the headquarters giving statements and testimonies, along with laying out every heist he’d been a part of for the past eight years. He’d confessed to everything, and had to admit, it felt good. 

All of his work for the Blackbirds, his time as the Smiley Thief, the locations of everything he’d ever stolen or helped steal. It was odd to throw them all away, all of his work, but in the end, it wasn’t the items or the money he’d cared about eventually. It was the thrill, and he knew whatever the future held in store for him, there’d be plenty of that.

Ethan had gotten most of it sorted out, even managing to get Liza off on a few technicalities, though Amherst had promised him that Connery, Graykle, and Omar would stay behind bars. But Amherst had said there’d be a price.

“What do you think she’ll say?” Mark finally asked, quelling Ethan’s bouncing knee as he waited impatiently.

“I don’t know,” Ethan mumbled. “Honestly I just hope she’s not about to tell me all of my testimony is invalid and now I have to go to jail for a bunch of years.”

“Well you did steal billions of dollars of art,” Mark said good-naturedly.

Ethan raised his eyebrows, pressing his hands together. “I returned it...eventually...maybe a few years late.” 

Mark just nodded with a smile. “Well Amy and I are rooting for you.” He gave Ethan a wink. “Maybe they’ll give you community service or something.” His mouth shaped into an O. “Or maybe they’ll make you lead tours at an art museum for high paying tourists.”

“ _ That _ would be worse than prison.” Ethan smirked.

The door opened behind them and Amherst entered, flipping through pages of paperwork. She looked up at them and smiled, pushing her glasses up into her hair. “Good to see you two.” 

They both voiced their greetings, as Amherst took at her desk. “Fischbach, I hope you’ve been adjusting well to being back probationally.”

“Yeah it’s been nice to consult, and mostly focus on helping Ethan with testimony.”

Amherst nodded towards him. “It’s been very useful in our case against the Blackbirds, we seem to have them dead to rights.”

“And my charges?” Ethan asked.

“They’ve been dropped, on the record, your time as the Smiley Thief was done both because you were blackmailed, and that you were undercover working for us.” 

“Oh, perfect.” Ethan leaned back into his chair.

“But-” 

“There’s a but?” He lifted his eyebrows.

“We’d like you to join the art theft team as a consultant. You’d be paid and compensated for your work, but you’d be doing it as a sort of community service.” She folded her hands on her desk. “You’d be working with Agent Nelson on cases to do with high profile theft. We’d assumed someone of your standing and knowledge would be a perfect fit for the team.”

“I’d love to,” Ethan replied. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to find a regular job after this, even in acting circles.” 

“Perfect, I’ll have you sign some paperwork, and we’ll get you put into the database. Nelson can show you the ropes, and give you any help you’d need.”

“Thanks Amherst,” Ethan got that warm feeling deep in his gut. “I know I’ll need it.”

“Now for you, Agent Fischbach.”

Mark raised his eyebrows. “Me?”

Amherst nodded. “I know at the beginning of all of this you wanted to work high profile cases, serial murders, that sort of stuff, and after this, I’m more than willing to put you back up where you used to be.”

“That’s very generous, but I think I’d like to stay where I am.” Mark sat forward slightly, straightening his back. “I think it’d be valuable to me to learn more from both Agent Nelson and Ethan, and I don’t mind that the stress takes a much smaller toll.”

Amherst grinned brightly. “I’m glad to hear that. I think you’re making the right choice.” 

After their conversation, Amherst shooed them out of her office, and Mark led Ethan into the bullpen, where Amy leaned against her desk, waiting for them.

“So?” She tapped her fingers on the wood surface. “How was the den of the lioness.”

“Actually not too bad,” Mark replied.

“Guess who got a job offer?” Ethan said in a sing-songy voice.

“No way.” Amy’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding.” 

“I’m officially now a consultant for the art theft department.”

“Which I believe, is technically us.” Mark pulled out the chair to his desk, leaning on the back. 

Amy turned to face him. “Wait, us?”

“Yeah, I turned down Amherst’s offer to go big leagues. I’m staying in art theft.”

“Okay now  _ you’re _ kidding.” Amy let out a little laugh and grabbed Ethan with one arm and Mark with the other. “We’re gonna be like the goddamn  _ dream team _ .”

“I hope so,” Ethan leaned into her. “I’m basically giving up my acting career for this.”

“What acting career.” Mark poked Ethan in the shoulder.

“ _ HEY _ .” 

Amy let go of them and grabbed her bag off of the back of her chair. “We should celebrate, how about the diner down the block?”

“If you’re paying,” Mark pulled his coat off of his chair. 

“Just this once,” she giggled, “because it’s both of you very special day.” 

“Mark I think she’s patronizing us.”

“She definitely is.” 

Amy threw her arms over their shoulders again as they began heading out of the room. “Ah, you guys will grow to love me.” Ethan had a feeling that he really would. 

The diner was a little place tucked away, but the food was great, and the company better. He and Amy got along like they’d known each other their whole lives, and he and Mark...well they practically had.

They made him happy in a way he’d never felt with the Blackbird, how he’d never felt alone. He felt loved, even by two people he’d only just gotten to know a few months ago. People who’d been hunting him down, only for him to befriend them in the end.

And maybe...maybe there was something more there, for all of them.

Amy’s phone buzzed on the table, and she pulled it up to her ear, still half chewing a burger. “Nelson.” Her eyebrows popped up suddenly and she covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “Wait, what?”

“Something happen?” Mark asked, still pushing a slider into his mouth.

“Got it, yep, we’ll be right there.” Amy started pulling out her wallet, and threw some cash onto the table. She looked up at the two of them, excited. “There was just a reported stolen piece on the 30th floor of a building, apparently it was there and then disappeared.”

Ethan felt his own expression mirror hers.

“We’ve got our first case.”

And Ethan had never been more excited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End :)
> 
> thanks so much for reading! and sorry for the like four spammed updates in two days, I really wanted to get this one finished!
> 
> hopefully you're satisfied with the ending, kinda more an open ended thing for interpretation, but I liked where it got to.
> 
> lots of love, stay safe, and happy reading!

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested in tipping, you can find me @ ko-fi.com/theecryptiid!


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